


Prisoner's Gold

by then00dle



Category: RWBY
Genre: F/M, Gauntlets and Greaves, RWBY - Freeform, yang x mercury
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-02
Updated: 2019-01-19
Packaged: 2019-07-23 21:54:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 24,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16167638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/then00dle/pseuds/then00dle
Summary: Okay, what would have happened if Mercury kept Yang's arm after their fight in Haven? What if they didn't know about each other's limbs? What if they're a lil ofc?? Not enough love for this crack ship yoThis is actually my first fanfic like ever so yeah let me know if im doing this wrongOh gosh! I forgot to add warnings:-I use a lot of curse words. So run now if that's not your cup of tea!-there's a lot of awkward sexual/romantic accidents- its that kinda fic-I wasn't joking bout the ofc, im not the best writer!!-I might of put in some memes





	1. Chapter 1

After five long days, and four very long dark nights, Mercury decided it was time to stop running. Even if his legs were up for four more days of non-stop use, his stomach and body needed a break. Not to mention his mind.

He was in a wooded area, like much of the rest that he’s past since yesterday afternoon, when he finally reached the end of all… her work. His mind jumped onto Emerald. He didn’t want to think about what happened. After Cinder was defeated, Emerald- she just changed. She still didn’t accept it when we got back to Salem’s layer. But when we were asked how the plan folded out, Emerald spoke. She took it all on herself, blamed her attacks, her thoughts, her feeling, her power, her youth, it was all her fault.

But it really wasn’t. 

_ We couldn’t have done anything about it. Like the damn kids we are... _

Emerald accepted holding herself responsible. And she completely broke knowing that Cinder was gone and believing it was because of her. Emerald saw something in Cinder that Mercury couldn’t have seen. She really did idolize her.

_ No, she was- she’s in love with her. _

Mercury’s mind went numb. How could anyone love someone like that? Someone so bitter, and hateful, and manipulative. For months, he waited for Emerald to see Cinder’s true character, and how someone like her would never allow love into her heart. He knew the type. He sighed out loud and decided not to blame Emerald, it takes a while to see someone as they really are under our own glorified expectations. 

_ Took me years. _

But when Emerald came sobbing back to Salem about how she was to blame Salem couldn’t have agreed with her more. 

Mercury tensed his stomach and grunted his teeth, yelling before kicking the closest tree to him and completely shattering it.

_ That FUCKING SALEM. She knows that Emerald is no way responsible for Cinder’s fall, neither of us are! She just wants to keep using her and she’s manipulating her own love- _

He suddenly took out a huge breath and straighten his back. No matter how many times he thought it, and said it, Emerald had already made her choice. He turned the opposite way he was running from and kept doing so. He wasn’t going to get swallowed by another adult’s trick. He had seen enough of that ride to know how it would end. 

_ Why did I even get a ticket for this in the first place? _

Something started beeping in his backpack, which made him stop and swing it around to open. He opened the bag and turned off the reminder. Nothing he was used to with his, but that thing that he picked up a few weeks ago had a reminder inbuilt that he couldn’t turn off. He didn’t understand why it would have a 'dislodged function' reminder though, it was pretty annoying to say the least. No matter, soon he’ll have it out of his hands, if he played his cards right. He was heading to Mistral.

 

\----

 

The take off to Atlas was just in two weeks, but it felt much longer than that. Yang knew it took awhile for these things to happen, but she was itching to get to the other relic. Unlike how Wiess felt about the whole ordeal, Yang couldn’t wait a bit.

_ Dammit, we would be there right now if I didn’t have to wait for that stupid package! _

Mail and messaging took much longer these days then ever. 

After Yang’s encounter with her mom, or Raven, she felt like it was her responsibility to protect the rest of the relics, like most of her friends. Although its power and awe was somewhat out of her understanding, once she held one herself, feeling the weight of it pulling on her soul while staying physically light... She realized right away that it could never go into the wrong hands. That’s just the kind of power she felt from it. 

Still, the extra time gave them an opportunity to send messages to the other kingdoms. Sun was able to get into contact with the rest of his team, who will hopefully meet up at Atlas with them. And team CFVY has already been marching across the lands and will be joining them within the week. They sent ravens and huntsmen across the continent to send word and search for other fighters. Which was what she was in the middle of doing right now. She did a wheelie on her bike just for shits and giggles before entering a small village, finally ending the never ending forest she drove through within the last few days. She parked her bike near the entrance and got off. 

When talking to the town's people, she wasn’t too surprised to hear that there were no fighters or at least no fighters that were willing within the whole area. However, she did hear some gossip about a thief in the woods who hit up the bakery and meat carvers five times in the past two days. They all assumed it was some desperate outcast, but no one's been able to spot them. And since it only started two days ago, no one believes it was someone from the town. Yang agreed to help them out.

She waited till nightfall. From what she understood, the crook stole enough for a family feast of two days. Unless he wasn’t working alone, he probably wouldn't hit up the village that night. But Yang was determined. She hoped that maybe the amount of supplies would slow them down. Maybe they are not that far off to begin with? She climbed the highest tree and stood on the top.

“Bingo-Bango”

Maybe a mile or so out she could see the tiniest bit of silver smoke leaving the valley of trees. A small campfire, probably about to go out. She hopped down to the grown and went over to her bike. 

She rode towards the fire, cutting the engines and hiding her bike under bushes when she got close. She climbed another bark and jumped from tree to tree, wanting to make sure that they couldn’t hear her, or her bike. She searched through the top branches to find the tiny campfire with one person laying next to it sleeping. 

The coat over him covered his face but she could tell it was a man. As rain started to drizzle the man woke up a bit, only to turn his stomach close to the fire as if he was cradling it. Yang felt bad for him, a lonely traveler with no shelter from the rain. She studied his campsite. Some bits of firewood, a backpack next to him along with a large sack. Nothing told her that he had ever gone to that village before. She felt the demeanor of a lost mut who didn’t have any ties with any village when she looked down at him. 

Eh, it could be him, but she couldn't just jump to conclusions, she had to see him in the act. He really didn’t look like a well-fed traveler from this point. Sneaking up and taking a look into his stuff wasn’t something she wanted to do if she was unsure. Even if it turns out he was stealing food, she didn’t want to turn him in to the village. A hungry desperate man does not deserve jail time, but she also concluded that anyone who would risk a night of grim-infected woods would be a capable fighter along the Atlas journey. She even swore she's seen a pair of combat boots like his before. In fact, she wanted to avoid a fight with this stranger at all cause, and sneaking up on his camp might not give off a good ‘Come and join or battle!’ vibe. But blackmailing? Now that was her favorite method of negotiation. 

She watched the man as he suddenly stretched onto his back, his cloak lifting just enough to see his mouth, a stream of droll went down his chin.

“Cute.”  

 

\---

She had waited all night in the trees, only going back once to check on her motorbike and get something to eat. After a few hours into the day, he woke up next to his defeated campfire. He stared at those coals for what felt like an eternity before grabbing his stomach, Yang also felt like she could hear his grumblings from up here. He went for the sack right away and that's when Yang got excited.

_ Finally! I’ve waited all night you know. _

It suddenly occurred to her how much time she had been wasting on this guy who could just be some random dude trying to camp in the woods. How much time she’s wasting instead of looking for other huntsmen. But when he started dumping out the sack, her face lite up. Nothing but fine meats and loaves of bread.

“Good morning!” the man exclaimed to the food with opened arms. He was happy to have something to get his mind off of- well everything. Eating never solved problems but for lord’s mercy did it ever help. If he were ever to fell in love to anything… it had to be food.

_ Yes, only food _

Before placing a roll of salami into his mouth he felt something off in the air. Quickly he got to his feet and backflipped back right before someone crashed into the place he was just sitting in.

“Looks like you’re in trouble now!” Yang's arms were crossed and she was smiling so hard she had her eyes closed. When she opened them however she meet familiar dark grey eyes. Her face twisted as she recognized his face, to which Mercury gawked to respond:

“Fuck. I’m in trouble now.”   


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They fight! place ya bets.  
> warning- a lot of cheesy sexual one-liners! im sorry

They stood in the woods with an empty fire pit, Mercury’s backpack, and a full sack of stolen food between them. Mercury was off balance while Yang was ready to throw down. Before he could even start his sass Yang flung herself to him and started punching.

“Wait- Blondie!” He blocked her punches with his forearms.

“Don’t. Call. Me. THAT!” Her punch landed right on the nose, while he leaned back from the hit she went for the gut punch but he blocked it with his knee.

“Hey- look okay- but you are a blonde, like-” Yang punched his leg that he was using to block making him spin, she then kicked his back. He voluntarily fell to his hands and knees.

He turned over his shoulder to look at her, she was obviously caught off guard by his unwillingness to fight.  

“Want to take a picture?” He winked while slightly moving his hips. Yang literally kicked his ass. 

“What are you doing here?” She yelled

“Funny, I was wondering the same thing-”

“Don’t lie to me! Are you following us, or stalking me? For Salem?”  Mercury sat up and turned to her before leaning back into the grass.

“Aren’t you the one that found me?” He playfully rolled his ankles as he said this grinning.

Before Yang could say anything else a loud noise from his backpack started going off. She recognized the nose instantly and in horror she looked back at him. He knew this only made things look worse.

He couldn’t take her gaze and watched the ground “Look, I-”

“Why the FUCK,” Yang stomped over to his bag, picked it up, and with her new robotic arm she fished out her old one from Mercury’s bag “DO YOU HAVE THIS?” She yelled. He flinched.

“Okay, okay, this looks bad.”

“Bad? BAD?"

_Like he would ever understand_

"Do you have any idea how vulnerable I have been without this? We had to postpone everything in our plans to make sure that my new arm would get here in time! You have no idea what it’s like! You could have at least dropped it-” 

She smacked her mouth with both hands. She didn’t mean to mention that they had a plan, not to the damn enemy. 

“I do.”

Yang snapped out of it “Huh?” 

She looked down at him, he was looking straight at her with a clear expression. Through his grey hair he looked at her so genuinely. 

“And don’t worry, about that-” referencing to her gasp “I uh- I’m not going to tell anyone of your little travel plans.” He smirked “I’m actually just trying to survive, as far away from Salem as I can.”

“Really?” She didn’t buy it for a second

“I know, I really am the pure archetype of a bad-boy but this- it’s just too much to-”

“Handle?” She raised her old tech arm in the air with a shit-eating grin. 

He couldn’t believe that had just happened. Nothing made him stop sassing, but bad puns were enough to kill him where he stood. He laughed but his face went cold looking at the robo limb he had been holding on to for weeks. 

_ How can you be like this in front of me? How could you joke with me like this? _

“Yang,” he started. For some reason it felt so strange for Yang to hear him say her name “I- I just kinda needed to hold on to it for awhile.”

“Yeah, to stop me from kicking your ass.”

“I don’t remember it happening that way but sure, why not.” He slowly got up to his feet. “Anyways, all I really wanted to do was to make sure I gave this back to you.” He stared right into Yang’s eyes with an emotionless face.

“I am sorry that it took me too long. You can have that food too if it helps, my treat.” He smiled. Yang looked down at the sack next to her

“That isn’t-” A blast came from him and his boot pistol got her right in the face, sending her backwards. When she got up she could just barely see Mercury’s silver hair jumping through the woods just going out of site, and as fast as a motorcycle.

_ We’ll just have to see about that _

Yang ran back to where her motorbike was and threw her old hand in her bag before getting on the bike 

”Come back here!” she demanded threw the woods 

“Why? I can do that at my next camp!” He yelled back over his shoulder

_ Won’t be as fun without ya though  _ He thought.

That's when he heard the rawrs of her motorbike.

“Oh shit-”

He ran even faster now, but it was too late, she was pretty much on his tail. Actually rolling off the rocks right above him right now. He jumped out of her way and swung his legs at her front tire, able to kick himself over a few trees. Yang’s bike was pushed over by the force of his kick with her right side under it.

“Fuck you!” She blurted, regretting it instantly because she knew he’d say-

“Maybe next time!” Mercury wink through his silver hair.

Yang kicked her bike up and started riding. She knew his game, act cocky, get her mad, use her personality to get the best of her. He never used to fight like that, but if her last fight with him taught her anything, smack talk was now one of Mercury’s best plays.

She caught up to him again, but this time he was bouncing through trees

“Can’t leave me alone, can you?” Mercury gave her a smirk “Never thought you to be so desperate Yang, don’t you know some boys aren’t worth the case?” he chuckled and got ahead. It did make her angry, but she decided to accept it. 

_ Just let yourself be angry, so you can let yourself stay focused _

She calmed herself just as Mercury shouted:

“I’m not into blondes” before he kicked a tree into her path.

But she saw it coming. Instead of swerving she did a wheelie and hopped it. Mercury saw this and whistled. 

“But I am into that-” He started kicking down every other tree as he went threw. Yang rode through and wheelie jumped only when necessary. She felt in total control and Mercury could see it. He blasted himself ahead to a very thick tree. It wasn’t going to go down easily, and Yang was catching up fast. He started windmilling his legs and made a tornado blast that he aimed right at the roots, and the tree started falling. He slipped under just in time to look back at Yang before a tree as big as a bolder slammed between them. Mercury smirked and jumped back. She didn’t have enough momentum to go over the tree but she was too close to stop, he waited to hear her crash. But the sound was more like a fire arm. She ditched her bike and jumped, and in mid air he watched as Yang herself flew over the tree trunk with a fist hitting him right on the mouth. 

He flipped from her punch, but landed on his feet. Yang landed and took her fighting stance, it was her turn to smirk.

“Thought you had me back there huh?” she pounded her fist together “I won’t go down that easy.”

“Oh I’ll take you down, Goldie,” he also got into a fighting stance, now that she was off her bike, all he had to do was keep her down. “I’ll make a bed for you that’s  _ just  _ right.” He smirked. 

Yang had had enough of it. He went first, but she knew it would be a kick and decided to go low and counter. She was able to get away with that a few times, before he made a bluff, opening her stance. He threw his ankle into her gut, she grabbed it fast and twisted it in an angle towards the ground as she got under him.

“I guess you really like going down, huh?” 

_ Oh you motherfucker! _

Yang started blowing crazy punches, easy to dodge, but if landed, they went far- and Mercury was a few yards back from her punch to his chest.

“Huh, thought you’d go easy on your crush.” He choked

Yang could feel her hair start burning and she was about to go smash.

_ No, don’t. This is what he does.  _

“Why so quiet? Are you planning on confessing?!?!” He put his hands to his face in a mockingly matter and with a girly voice he says “R-right now? S-s-sempai?” 

She stared him down. _ Damn! I need to use something against him. _

She went for him but didn’t attack, instead she kept up her guard and charged. He shrugged and started kicking, but she was able to dodge and block it all.

“Coming in a little close, are we?” he grinned, but she ignored it

_ Come on, why continue? Can you do anything else to me? _

“I’m sorry honey, but you're a little too touchie.”

_ Actually, that might be all he has against me- my blinding anger _

And with that thought in mind Yang couldn’t hide her laughter, It made Mercury jump back from their fight.  

“What’s so funny blondie?” He put out his arms, a little annoyed.

“Nothing.” She smirks “It’s just that you think you can beat me, only in your dreams.”

“Yeah, like in every wet one.” 

Just like she expected, this was her chance. Yang yelled and with eyes practically closed she hurled fist at him.

He blocked two or three then grabbed her arm to pull her body into a flip. When she smacked her back into the ground he smiled down on her.

“You know, I’m interested on making those dreams a reality.” He dropped his stance. 

She placed her hand under her back, grabbing it and made a face of pain.

Mercury scuffs “And here I thought that you liked it rough?”

While her back is on the ground she kicks him in the caff, expecting him to fall, but he just kneels into the kick and grabs both of her legs on the ground. 

_ What kind of fucking armor is that? I gave that kick all I had! _

“So, you wana know about my kinks?” Mercury crept closer on top of her, and as if on que Yang snarled:

“Get the hell off me!” She squirmed under his weight, one hand behind her back, the other robotic one held down by Mercury's hand and her legs pinned under his body. Mercury knew he had won this fight, now he just needed to freak her out and keep her down so he could escape without another chase. Yang blushed thinking what she had to do next.

“Is that blush I see? Can’t complain, this is a pretty-”

“Let go of me!” She used a high-pitched voice and squirmed some more. He tried to laugh at her, but the way her boobs jiggled had him distracted. He felt heat on the skin of his face tingle as his gaze stayed fixed.

And this is where the hidden dragon strikes. Yang yanks something out from behind her back and grabs Mercury’s hand while collecting the other one with her robot arm that was pinned by it. What she got out from her back pocket was some Atlas tech. Yang saw it as a laser that kept aura out but objects in, so basically aura-sucking handcuffs, ones that changed sizes and length. She got on top of Mercury’s back and kneed him in the jaw while doing so, cuffing his arms behind him. He started trying to get back up but she swiftly took out the other cuffs and got his legs. He was now a useless snake. 

Before he could even be in shock Yang picked him up over both of her shoulders and turned her neck to face him.

“So, do you want to know about my kinks?” She winked and started laughing, hard.

_ Wait _

“Th-that- you tricked me! That was a low move!” He cried as he looked down at her chest blushing again. She flicked his nose.

“Hey, it’s not a move I’m proud of using, but what can I do when my enemy is non-stop flirting with me the entire fight? Pick your dates man, this is only fair.”

He grumbled at this but she continued:

“You’re lucky you’re a cute boy who knows where Salem’s hiding spot is, or you would have been history.”

He sighs deeply. “Already am.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope that wasnt too cringy! gotta love me some over confident characters to write thou, this chapter was fun to make!  
> tell me wut cha think??


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How does Mercury react to being a prisoner?? Is he still charming? Prob not folks

His taunting continued even after the fight was long over. And that part annoyed her. She finally snapped at him once they got to the large torn down tree where she left- or kicked- off her bike. 

“Ugh I can’t deal with this!” She shoved him down. He landed on his hands under his back with a grunt. Then he moved his body through his cuff arms so that they were tied in front of him and pushed off the ground to stand. 

“Oh good, you should gag me too then.” He winked. 

Yang fully turned to him. He had his cuffed hands up supporting the back of his head and looked at her so intensely with lust before taking a step closer.

She had to admit, Mercury Black was- is- a very fine lookin’ dude. But she wasn't going to let him know that. She challenged his demeniner with a wide grin.

“A gag, huh? Not a bad idea, but the only thing I can spare to use as a gag-” She pulled out her other robotic arm from her bag on the bike “-is this. Don’t think it will do _ too _ much harm on your throat, as long as it saves me a headache, because we have a long way to go. So shove it in”

Like him, she took only one step closer with her extra robot arm in hand. He pulled his hands down in front of her.

“No I’ll shut up, please don’t gag me with that.”

She was happy to see him serious, but she needed to poke fun a bit.

“Aw, but what about all your kinks?” She giggled

“Maybe later?” Yang scuff at that, but the way he said it, it was as if he was asking his teacher for a cookie. 

Yang got her bike back up, and luckily it didn’t get too scratched up from the fight. She got on and patted to seat behind her.

Mercury looked down “How can I sit? My legs won’t be able to go on either side. Safety first, right?”

She put her kickstand down and went over to Mercury. She took his wrist and pulled them up and took a step in, so close it made Mercury choke on his breath. She turned around and pulled his arms down back over her and they held around her waist.  

_ Her hair… smells really good _

“Don’t get excited.” she puffed, as if she read his thoughts. “You can side saddle it.”

She started walking over to the bike, dragging mercury along with her.

“Side saddle? Only girls do that!”

“Why?” Yang asked him “Doesn’t it kind of make more since that males should be riding horses differently?” they juggled onto the bike “Have you ever rode a horse before?”

“Oh I have,” he said, breath right on her back, he leaned forward and whispered into her ear “I’ve got balls of iron.”

She elbowed him under his ribs. “Want me to get my other arm?”

“No, please.” he chirped “But I must agree with that other statement, however it shouldn’t apply. We are on a bike.”

“Yeah,” Yang turn on her bike and got her sunglasses on. "A bad-ass bike at that." She zoomed into the woods with a wailing Mercury attached.

 

\--

 

They had rode all day, and apparently it was going to take much longer to get to their destination. The sun was setting from behind them, as they rode on a cliff’s edge up a mountain.

“You really went far from your friends, any drama you wana talk about?” Mercury was so silent the whole ride that Yang was happy to continue the sassy’s conversation. She was bored after all.

“Nope, just like to journey out I guess.” 

“Oh sure, right. No one just dips off so far like that-” he was cut off by a look she flashed him in the side-view mirror, adjusting it with her right arm. 

“Okay wise-guy, what about you? You spent a night alone in the woods, resulting to theft and fire spooning. What’s your excuse?”

He didn’t have one, well not a good enough one, just a cowardly one. He decided to change the subject.

“Where you watching me sleep last night?” He tightened his hands that were already around her waist and leaned close to her ear “Liked anything you saw?” He squeezed her and then he felt them* on his forearms. 

_ Wow really? _

He lessened his noose around her and looked away, but Yang felt the touch and could see his red face in the mirror.

“Smooth.” She whistled with the wind

_ Oh god, I bet _

“You’re shy now? Like, _ now _ you’re shy?” she teased. But his mind was somewhere else

_ There that big? Like really? _

“Man Mercury, if I didn’t know any better, I would say that you actually never touched a woman, and your whole ‘cool-guy’ character is just an act to hide that.” She turned to look him in the eye. With her in his arms he looked at her purple eyes stuck on a cute face to match. 

_ She’s… kinda… cute _

“Right?” She asked him

“Right.” He choked. She turned her head back around and laughed

“Mercury, do you have any idea what you just confirmed?”

“Huh?”

She turned her eyes back on the road “I guess that confirms it too…”

Another long silence. Almost thirty minutes maybe. He pulled close to her ear again.

“So, what are you going to do to me?” He asked seductively, pulling on his cuffs. Yang rolled her eyes.

“Ozbin will know. My guess is, you’re going to lead us straight to Salem.” 

He felt a pit fall in his stomach 

_ What? _

“Salem! Why take me there-”

“Because you know where it is? And come on, you will fit right back in my evil man. I’m sure it will all work out for you.”

He got mad fast at that “There's no way in hell I’m letting you take me back there!” He yelled and started shaking the bike around very roughly. He didn’t care if they got into a crash, it would hurt but he wouldn’t care. Yang completely ignored him. He screamed at her.

“You FUCKING BIMBO! GET ME OUT OF THIS- UNTIE ME!” 

“Aw, and here I thought you were enjoying our time together?” she responded.         

“NOT EVEN FUCKING CLOSE!”

He slashed around a bit, but Yang was unphased, and so was her bike, Yang let out a deep sigh.

“Mercury, it’s pointless,” She rode the bike towards the edge of the cliff they had been riding on, and went as close as she could get near the drop. He immediately  stopped and stayed still on the bike, with his lap over the cliff. It was a breathless drop.

“As you can see, I’ve got great balance.” Before he could say anything Yang did a wheelie. His side saddle broke, and his feet was dangling over the cliff- the cuffs around Yang being the only thing keeping him up now. He couldn’t look down at the view right under Yang’s back Wheel. Instead he looked ahead. There was a slope on the cliff near the corner of the rode and it looked safer. He had to get back on. 

“Please, for the love of mercy Yang!” He cried. She loved it.  

_ Yeah that’s fucking right. My name is  _ _ Yang _

He heard her chuckle before she moved closer in the road and went down on two wheels again. But this time Mercury was sure to keep his legs facing the mountain, and not the view with the edge like before.

“Too much fun, tough guy?” He stayed cold and silent as he watched the road, there was going to be a sharp turn coming up soon.

“Silent treatment? Rude. Just wanted to show you how safe you are on this bike, as long as I’m on it, this bike isn’t falling.” She started to make the sharp turn.

Mercury grinned “Is that so?”   

Mercury lifted his legs to the side of the mountain, now on the turn he was close enough to bounce as hard as he could off of it. Blast-kicking himself towards the edge of the cliff, pulling yang with him.

She was shocked but knew she wasn’t going to throw her bike off the cliff as well, she voilteerinly let go of her handlebars and swiftly grabbed her keys from the ignition. 

“My bike!” She shouted, watching it run off unmanned crashing into the side of the mountain just before the edge of the cliff cut her view.

“Mercury!” She yelled, her eyes going red whether she liked it or not.

Mercury stayed quite in the free-fall, he kept looking at the ground, a walled forest like everything else. That kick took out more of him than he expected, he felt his energy getting sucked by the atlas tech. Yang turn to face him in his arms and started kneeing him in the Kidney.

He tried to slip under her legs with his cuffed hands, but she pulled them back up and head-butted him. She was about to go for another punch, but she looked beyond Mercury’s face and went:    

“Oh shit!”

She started blasting towards her/behind Mercury, and he felt a branch slam into his back. They’re bodies mangled in the air in the trees. He also did another blast kick and they bounced up before crashing into the forest. Yang made them start spinning with her punches as they came down. She mostly used Mercury as a shield, while his back broke branch after branch. They hit the ground hard and started rolling. Mercury tried to use the roll to get his arms over Yang’s head, but she pressed her back on them and they were pinned under her as they did the final roll with him on top of her. Not the best landing strategy.

They looked at each others eyes for a second, but both broke it with a huff of exhaustion. Mercury was in a lot of pain and he honestly gave up. He was so weak. He laid down next to Yang but he was mostly on top of her. 

“What. The hell. Where you thinking?” She asked between pants.

“I wasn’t.” He stated in defeat. “I just thought that ‘hey this can’t be any worse, why not give it a spin?’” He grinned and looked at her “Just thought that you would… fall for it.”

She couldn’t hide her laughter, and he could tell it irritated her. She gave him a punch to the shoulder, but not enough for it to be painful like her normal punches, yet too much to be something playful. He lifted his body over Yang again and stared at her in the eyes with a serious expression.

“Please, I can’t go back to Salem’s. I know you don’t believe me but trust me. I. Want.  _ Nothing _ to do with her.” He shook his head and broke eye contact. Curious, she lifted her self closer to him.

“I-” Mercury went, still watching the ground “I’m not a good person, I know that, just let me be before I fuck up anything else.” He looked at her “I just want-” and then he stopped. He didn’t realize how close she was. They were face to face, just inches apart from each other. Yang kept watching him, curious to what he was going to say. But Mercury only freaked out and leaned back so hard that he pulled Yang over on top of him, forgetting his arms were around her, making her land her face into the crook of his neck as he laid on the ground. He shivered feeling her surprised huff on his jaw.

She instantly got up over him, about to yell to drop his little playboy act. But his face was so red and in shock that she instantly decided it was by accident. She calmed herself and sat down on top of him. When she did her eyes popped as did Mercury’s. 

“Disgusting!” She yelled. Leaping up and pulling his arms over her. She held onto his cuffs as he laid there.

“I promise that has never happened before.” He shrugged, trying to act like it was no big deal. But his face…

Yang looked up to the sky. It was starting to become purple.

“You really are a virgin, aren’t you, bad-boy?” She pulled his cuff so that his was on his feet.

_ How the fuck- _

“No I’m not-” he watched her facial expressions, and decided that he shouldn’t show his anger to tip her off. “I mean, why don’t you see for yourself?”

“Heh. I guess I could, but you already confirmed it.”

Mercury huffed “When did this happen? While you were stalking me?”

“You told me yourself, and I rather not to take a person’s virginity today.” She winked and turned around.

“But what are we going to do now?” He was referencing something else, but Yang didn’t turn back to look where he was pointing at.

“Well I’m not going to try and hike that mountain under the moonlight.” She started walking. “One more night in the woods for you I guess.”

He stumbled after her. 

“Oh goody.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha sorry things got a little jampled, I don't write action too much so let me know if any parts were too confusing!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a lot of accidental sexy touching in this chapter folks  
> Mercury is not happy about being a prisoner  
> And Yang really had no idea about his legs before hand (idk i still think that should be cannon, why would team rwby even know?)

Yang had a campfire going while mercury laid down on his back in great pain. That fall took a lot out of him, but his aura being cut off could do little to heal him. He wanted to play it as relaxed as possible. And Yang was starting to loosen up. They had been silent since the sun set, making sure not to alarm any grim in the area. Mercury first thought maybe he could just hop away when Yang went to sleep. But decided that no, it was very stupid to continue his journey with these cuffs on his limbs. But waiting for her to fall asleep and going threw her bag might do the trick. However he ditched that plan as well. She got those cuffs from a pocket on the back of her shirt that was well concealed, he only noticed it when they rode together today. He would have to feel around to find it and Huntresses are not know for being heavy sleepers. No one could be if they were in Grim territory. He decided his best bet was to take her out, all he needed to do was wait for her to get into range of his laid down legs. He had to take the perfect shot, not willing to make too much noise to alert any nearby beast. 

He pulled his hands from his stomach over his head for support.

“Man, you can really see the stars out here.” He sighed. Yang looked over to him from her spot near the fire.

“What? No stars near Salem's layer?”

“Yeah, too much ugh, fog in the air.”  _ Let’s call it that _

“Hmp. Sounds depressing.” she moved closer to the fire, all she had to do was lean closer to him and he could aim. 

“Oh it was.”

“No wonder all you bad guys seem so sad.”

Mercury looked over to her peeling his gaze off the sky. “What do you mean? We’re all fun-loving, athletic, socializing killers.” He joked.

“Hmm, I guess you can say that it’s easy to fall down darker roads with no stars to guide you.” She looked up at the stars. “Stars have always given me hope, made me feel like I was part of something much larger. Made me feel loved.”

_ Feeling loved?  _ Mercury huffed at that. He caught an amber flick away from the fire and kept watching the coals. 

_ That doesn’t help shit. Look what it’s done to me, to Emerald! I fucking left her there- _

“Mercury?” Yang ducked her head down closer towards him and looked at him with concern as he glared into the fire with rage.

_ I think that's how he was this morning too,  _ she thought

She remembered how he stared at his campfire before getting into his stolen goods. 

Mercury turn to look at her and a spark went off in his eyes, he exhaled deeply and enjoyed her beauty silently to himself. He lifted his legs and point blank shot her between the eyes. 

“Agh!” She yelled, collapsing onto the ground.

He stayed down for a bit, waiting to see if she would get up. But no, she was out. He struggled to get up and look down at her. She had dropped her guard and her aura when she tried to talk to him back there. His stomach sunk a bit looking at her limp self. 

“God I’m such an asshole.” 

He leaned down and started searching for the pocket. He couldn’t believe that after going to Mistral to search for Yang that he could messed it up this badly.

_ I just wanted to at least make up for this one god damn sin out of the fucking thousands and I can’t even get that right _

He traced his finger over the zipper and started unzipping down her lower spine.

_ I’ll never be free of this, I will never be loved- _

A blood-stopping roar ripped the air close behind him. He looked up and found an Ursa Grim standing only a few yards from him. Without even thinking Mercury grabbed the key from her pocket and went down to his legs to uncuff them. The monster started running towards them. He clutched onto Yang and jumped to avoid the grim at the last second, holding on to her. The ground where they just were was destroyed by the beast, the cuff in pieces and rocks crushed. While the Grim was turning around to him Mercury awkwardly tried to carry Yang princess style with his hands tied. It kind of worked and he was able to move much faster. Not to mention he had free legs again. His energy was slowly coming back to him, but not enough, and it never felt complete. Plus his body was still sore from the fall. He started kicking the Grim, but it only irritated it. It’s claws swung fast and Mercury was hardly able to dodge it. “Yang!” He cried as she almost got slashed in his arms. He shot a ton of pistol kicks at the grim before running behind a rock to settle Yang down. He ran right back at the grim hoping not to give her position away.     

He knew this wasn’t the strongest of grim, but it definitely wasn’t one of the weakest. He could probably take it easy if he didn’t have to only do front kicks. His other moves and kicks require body balance, and he wasn’t going to fall on his ass and let himself die from it. The Grim did another large swing when Mercury went running towards it. He jumped over and landed on his arm, running up it to its face, each step blasting into the monster. The Grim shook Mercury off by the time he got up to the shoulders. Mercury landed then fell when he couldn’t place his arms behind him for balance. The monster cried, it’s arm limb. Then charged right at him, fast even with a bad arm. Mercury didn’t have time to get up. Instead he rolled under the Grim. The grim only landed on his legs and lifted his other claw up. Roaring with sharp teeth. 

“Shit I let myself die.” 

But the Grim’s face exploded instead. 

Mercury began to breath again as the grim started to disintegrate into the sky. Behind the black ash was a mess of golden hair.

Yang stared him down with her arms folded over her chest. She didn’t look angry but her eyes were red. He didn’t know why but her look of disappointment was too much to gaze at. He looked away.

“Don’t give me that, I have every right to want to get the fuck away from you whenever I please. Don’t get mad at me saying this- but you’re kind of a bitch and you’re fucking kidnapping me for no damn reason! I’m not going to help you get to Salem, so you better just kill me now!” He yelled a little bit at the end which made Yang walk up to him and kick him in the face. But not as hard as she could.

“What the hell-”

“Stop shouting. We know there are Grim here, do you want to attract some more?” She went down and grabbed his shirt and snapped him up so he was standing. 

“Maybe I should just kill you.” Yang stated. He finally faced her and smiled.

“That’s what I would do.”

_ Heck, it’s all I deserve  _

Yang stepped in closer, her grip on his shirt tightening, eyes blood red. “I’m. Not. Like. You.” She said between her teeth. “I’m not going to waste a human life just because they’re a hassle, or even because they’re the enemy. Heck being a terrible flirt can be a reason to you probably but not to me. I don’t just drop my baggage off, I can’t- and I won’t let you slip away. You can try all you want, but now that I’m on my guard I’m not letting you out of my site. Ever.” 

“Good for you.”

Yang allowed her mouth to twist into anger. She pushed him hard against a tree and pushed his shoulder down to where he sat with his back on the tree. Her eyes back to normal. She then uncuffed his hands from the front of him and pulled them around the tree to cuff them again. She kneeled in front of him.

“I said I wouldn’t kill you but nothing is stopping me from breaking your legs.”

“Hmmm, naw. Don’t remember that working out so well last time you did that to me.”

She sighed hard. He was confused when her eyes flashed regret. 

“Let’s- just make this easier for you now so that it won’t get harder for both of us later.” She looked down at his legs. “Do you have any other weapons on you other than your greaves?”

“Oh jee, I’m not so sure officer... you’re just going to have to give me a strip-search.”

Yang shrugged “Fare enough, but you won’t be getting your clothes back afterwards.” Mercury swallowed his spit   

“It’s just my legs, they’re my only weapons I have on me. I have a few knives in my backpack though-” It just occurred to him that he left his backpack at his other campsite along with all that food.

_ Oh man, I miss food _

He hated that he wasn’t able to try out his stash that morning. 

She started taking off his boot, and looked at it. There was a huge hole on his soles of the shoe. In fact, there was hardly any shoe bottom at all. She looked up to ask him why but then saw that his weird grey sock was not a sock.

“Whoa-” She looked at his foot. It was metal. She then noticed the other shoe also had a hole with metal underneath. She looked up to him about to ask him why, how, but she recognized the look he gave and dropped those thoughts.

“So... you have gun legs?” Purposely not using the word ‘prosthetics’.  

“Yeah. And you have a gun hand, why so surprised?” He asked, slowly bring back his smirk. “Want to try and break them now?”

“The Vital festival!” She exclaimed, and the smirk he had on just fell into sad puppy face, the ironic kind. But Yang kept going

“You really did completely fake the injury! I thought for months that you guys tricked me into actually hurting you, and using it to bring everyone’s moral down. But you never were hurt, were you?” She was a little angry, and he was unhappy to have all his bad shit get thrown back into his face.

“Honestly, how the fuck did you not notice it sooner?” His brows and face bended into anger. “God, you know how easy it was back then, just surround by the stupid, navie, and sheltered; we got away with everything.” He leaned further back into the tree “You guys never opened your eyes to the possibilities, that even an endless power was literally right under your noises. Tell me, did the academy even teach you guys? No training huntress or huntsmen could feel that magic, that Relic, in their aura?” Mercury scoffed. “A power so great, only to be gifted to the ungrateful, and ignorant. Growing up with that power always there to guide them- can even make worms believe they are useful and safe- but worst, most of those egos concluded that they were invincible!” 

He had only been talking in a casual voice until the last line, looking down at Yang, challenging her.  

_ They just let their idea of their strength get the best of them, as if they accept their own idea of the world instead of a reality where you can’t afford to never expect what will happen  _ Mercury thought

“You are all weak.” He snarled ”And Becan fell because of that.”

He instantly remembered when he grabbed Yang’s arm in the fight at Haven, and how it cleanly detached from her body. How she left her limb in his hands. When he realized the damn bimbo was just like him. And he never expected it. 

“God.” Yang huffed, snapping him out of his memory. “You are such an asshole-” She tilted her head, not allowing him to see her sadness from her failure in Beacan. Not wanting to think about that day or Beacan at all. ”and a pretty angsty asshole as well. I can’t believe I ever felt bad about hurting you. Just wished I went for your arm instead now. Unless you have anymore body mods that I should know about?”

He shook his head.

“But you know,” Yang went on “Worms are kind of super important.”

“Huh?”

Yang looked from the ground and up at the tree behind him.

“The worms make the soil good enough for all this!” she flung her arms up “They are, like, gods of growth almost.”

Mercury rolled his stare away. He wanted to get as far away from her as he could. Being around her just reminded him of the asshole he was.

“Okay, whatever.” Mercury pouted “Just do whatever you’re going to do so we can get this over with.” 

“Okay then, how do I turn these off?” Yang asked, taking off the other shoe.

Mercury looked confused at her and raised an eyebrow “I kind of need those to walk.”

“Well I’m not letting you stay with a weapon on you. My arm has a pistol-cover switch. If yours doesn’t I’m going to have to stuff them with something around these woods. Jam it with rocks or something.”

_ Not my babies! _

“Okay, yeah don’t do that. There is an ‘off’ switch to the pistols, but I never really sealed them before.”

“Always on guard, huh?”

“Something like that.”

She picked up his foot and started looking around his robotic ankle. “Where is the switch then?”

“It’s just a little further up the leg.”

Yang started rolling up his pants but Mercury mockingly coughed.

“It’s uh, they’re above my knees.” 

Yang looked at his pants

“You gotta be kidding me.” 

“I’m not, and if I am then fuck- keep my pants.”

She leaned forward and grabbed his hips. “You better be wearing underwear.”

They stared at each other face to face.

“Underwear?” He asked with a confused expression. Instantly, she lifted her hands off of him.

“Haha, no I’m just kidding.” He smirked at her. Yang moved back to his belt with her head shaking back and forth. Trying to hide her small smile. 

“You better not get another boner...”

“Oh come on, that was just once! And for the record-” She unclipped his belt and unbuttoned his pants before looking up at him to say:

“Lift up your bum for a second.”

He did so. She pulled his pants below his waist and over his butt then crotch, He wore dark grey boxer briefs. She took his black jeans all the way down to his ankles. His automail took up a lot more of his legs then she had imagined. They started just a few inches under his boxers. But he had some of the best smoothest looking thighs under his bulge. Mercury’s legs folded over the other.

“Stop starting.” there was no hint of flirtation, Yang looked at his browed eyes and knew she had made him uncomfortable. 

“Oh sorry, I really was just trying to admire your- uh metal work.” She blushed and looked away. 

She was was starting to get embarrassed, and wonder if he was shy to be pantless. She looked back at his knees, making sure her eyes wouldn’t creep up further. 

“Okay, where is that switch!” Yang acted excited to calm the mood. Mercury’s mouth stretched into a thin line across his face while his eyes sunk. He wasn’t uncomfortable, but he just didn’t want her to stare. Starin’s rude. He looked down at her and said: “Those blue ones, slide them up, it’ll be underneath.”

She did the left, then the right. But she didn’t put his pants on right away. She stood over him on her knees.

“That kinda looks like dust storage.” She pointed to his caffs and cocked an eyebrow at him. He looked at his leg then back to her.

“Well would you look at that?” 

_ Really was hoping that she wouldn’t notice that _

He walked her through on how to unload his legs. Then she got up with his dust and placed it inside his shoes. She noticed that his boots had most of the dust bullets. She kept one near the fire then went behind the rocks to hide the other. 

“Are you really going to leave me like this?” He called out to her playfully. “I’ll catch my death out here!” his sarcasm extra crispy  

She moved back next to him, hands on her hips. “Magic word?” she asked

“P-p-p-promise I won’t get another bonner?”

She kneeled down over him “Good enough.”

She took his pants from his ankles and brought them over his knees and started crawling them up his leg. 

”I’m still a little disappointed though,” Mercury said “After al-ah-AH-” Mercury sneezed. His body reacted and he lifted his legs harshly that bounced Yang to slam on top of him, and also pushing her face into the sneeze. 

Their foreheads and noses were touching. She sat with his waist between her legs, and her hands stuck on his thigh, fingers just creeping under his boxer leg holes. Chest to chest, eyes locked, feeling the other’s breath on their mouth. Yang almost shuttered when Mercury whisper to her 

“Hey.” His voice was very low and hardly to be heard “This is a great posstition.”

Mercury couldn’t help but get turned on again, and he really didn’t care to hid it. Yang was sitting right on his member and she felt the heat coming from it right away. His thighs on her fingers got hit by the heat wave. Yang snapped out of it and tried to lift her hands up fast, but it made him flinch, a little ticklish. He jerked up a thrust with his hips, accidentally dry humping his boner into her crotch. His hardness under her just under a thin layer of clothes. 

Both of their eyes went even wider as they stared at each other in complete shock and bright red blush. She pushed him and stood up, and started wiping her face off from his sneeze.

“You fucking virgin!”

“Hey I really couldn’t help that one-” He started “and I’m not a virgin.” He stared at Yang’s blush “To be honest, I think the virgin might be you. Is that your innocence showing?” He chuckled.

Yang was about to jester to his crotch but decided not to for some reason.

“You're one to talk!” She sucked in her breath to stop herself from getting too loud. “Just the way you act and everything- like what doesn’t turn you on? Let me know so we can continue doing that for the rest of the trip.” she sighed

“Honestly, not much ever turns me on, but let's be honest Yang-” He looked up to her and the confidence in his voice dropped a bit to his surprise “you’re- uh- pretty attractive, all around.” He jerked his gaze away, but felt that that looked too bad. He turned back to her and his eyes jokingly went up and down her body and he shrugged a smiled at her annoyed expression.

“Hey I can’t help myself in front of a pretty girl I guess, doesn’t mean I’m a virgin though.” He wouldn’t look back at her. A little too embarrassed to have revealed his attraction for her, it would only make the trip a lot more awkward now. But as long as he acted like he didn’t care, he knew she wouldn’t ether. However, he was starting to get shy about his pants still not being all the way on him while he had a semi.    

“Well, you really have  _ fallin’  _ for your enemy, huh?” Her shoulders popped up and down as she referenced him pulling them over the cliff earlier that evening. 

“Oh come on- it’s too late to do that joke again, just too late man.” He finally looked back over at her. “And I think you’re getting ahead of yourself, fallen for and physical attraction are two different things completely.” He put on another attractive grin with one eyebrow twitched up.

_ Fuck don’t look at his face _

“Haha, come on, it was for the pun!” Yang was starting to get flustered- quite a few people have told her she was attractive before, but never in a situation like this. Not after a fight, not when they acted this confident with hands tied and pants pulled down, not after she felt their boner. Never with an enemy. She couldn’t look at his face again, not without admiring it. 

“Right, right.” Mercury started “Anyway, it is getting cold, mind uh-” He looked down at his waist and shook his metal knees “helping me out?” He gave her a shit eating grin. He hoped that his cocky attitude would annoy her again so she would just leave him alone. He started to hate that he told her how pretty she was. It felt like she had something to use against him. 

_ To be honest though, I bet she’s got the hots for me as well _

He remembered the blush on her face, wondering if he played his cards right, he might be able to use that to his advantage, to escape. Get her to take off his cuff, maybe she would be more than willing to get his hands all over her after he gained her trust.

Yang grabbed his armpits and got him up to his feet, upset that she didn’t think to do this sooner. Quickly, she dragged his pants back over him, zipped and buttoned. While she pulled his waist with his belt he looked down at her, smirking with content. Yang only stare up at him as she got his belt buckled, a little annoyed at that look.

“Little tighter.” He whispered seductively. She pulled his hips forward with his belt and made it tighter. He made a sarcastic moan to which she replied with pulling down on his right shoulder to sit him back against to tree. She then started walking towards the fire.

“Good night Mercury.” She sat down with her back facing him and laid down.

“What, you don’t want to cuddle?” He laughed, but she gave him no reply. He huffed and watched the fire in front of her for awhile.

It was going to be hard for him to fall asleep in that position, but it’s not like he had a choice.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter  
> they climb up back to the bike!

Yang woke up just before dawn. Happy to have a full night's rest without anymore Grim attacks. She turned to her prisoner, leaned back on the tree and head falling over his shoulder a bit. He’s mouth was a bit open and drool was coming from it. For a moment she watched him. Her grumbling stomach snapped her out of her stare and she got up to her feet.

_ We need to get back to my bike _

It had all of her food and camp-stuff, plus a few rounds of dust she didn’t want any bandits to go running though. She was proud she was able to grab her key at the last minute, but it didn’t mean that her bike would stay untouch and unstolen.

“Wake up.” she nudged his foot with her’s and no response. She kneeled and shook his shoulder and he snapped out of his slumber

“What-what” He looked around confused but then looked up at Yang and remembered. “Oh...” 

“Let’s get back to my ride.” She looked above the trees to view the mountain “It’s going to be a long hike.”

\---

 

Mercury had his hands tied behind his back as Yang followed from behind, keeping very close to him- making sure he wouldn’t run off with uncuffed legs. She doesn’t know what to tell Wiess when she got back, taking that the cuffs were borrowed and that she would only be receiving one back now... Yang watched Mercury’s every little movement, from the sway of his head to his steps on the rocks before them, and how his ass moved with his feet.

_ Not bad… _

They were both exhausted, injured, and hungry. Not to mention Mercury's aura was still at a constant low. The only thing they had that Yang carried was Mercury’s shoes and bullets. Her bad-ass glasses lost during the fall. 

“How much higher- could this mountain be?” Mercury huffed out

“Hey-” Yang panted “you weren’t timing our fall yesterday? This is all your fault, so no complaining from you.” He grumbled a bit at that and Yang let out a chuckled breath “If you didn’t want to climb back up- ya should have thought of a better way of escaping- my grasp.”

“No no,” Mercury was wheezing like her “I actually- really like being your slave, just took a night of pantsing- to come around to it.” He was being overly sarcastic.

Yang wasn’t going to go down that road with him. Instead she kept walking on in silence. 

 

It wasn’t too long before they came across the dirt road that they were riding yesterday. They started following it up the mountain.

“Oh jee,” Mercury started, both of them not as breathless with a smoother road to track on “I feel like it was just yesterday when we were here last.” Another overly sarcastic tone of excitement. 

“You’re right,” She ignored his attitude and looked around “We are definitely getting close.”

“I actually think I see it.”

Yang almost leaped past him to look ahead “My bike! Where?”

“No,” he said “the turn that I, uh used. See it? Should be around that corner.”

“Are you sure that’s the one.”

“Yeah. Looks like the perfect kicking point, still does.”

They jogged up past the corner only to find no bike.

“I thought you said this was it?” She snapped, huffing as she pushed him to go up the rode further.

“No, wait, this was the place. I’m sure- no positive of it.”

“Maybe your not that good at remembering as you thought-” walking a little further they could hear a very familiar sound.     

Instantly they both ran to it. Her bag was almost infused with a tanglement of the bushes on the side of the rode. She yanked it threw and got her loud robotic arm out and switched it off. She then opened a compartment around the wrist and unplugged something out. Mercury assumed it was the alam.

When she was done she looked up at him. They both knew what this meant, and he knew she had every right to blame him. But instead of getting angry Yang collapsed in front of him and sat down. She was exhausted. She brought her back-pack up to her lap and opened it again.

“Come here,” She jestered him to lower ”Let’s eat.”

He sat down legs crossed like her and without looking up she handed him a protein bar from her bag. He scuffed at her.

“Oh how very nice of you blondie, let me just grab this and oh but wait!” He shuffled his arms behind him “I can’t.”

Yang looked at him, already with a full mouth of food, but her stare made him feel like he should stop joking. She moaned and started unwrapping his bar.

“Say aw-” She drove the bar towards his lips. 

He looked at her deadpanned. Then opened his mouth. Keeping his eyes on her as they both chewed. It was like they were challenging each other on who could chomp the must aggressively, never breaking eye-contact.

“Aw-” He said. He was done with his first bite.

She carefully placed the bar into his mouth, and to mimic her he carefully and very slowly took another bite. It annoyed her to keep her arm up. She watched his mouth waiting. His lips looked soft as he widened them over the bar. He bit down with his canines and his jaw started moving in rotation with his mouth. His lips would push in and out as he moved the food between right to left sides of his cheeks. Then he licked his lips.

He swallowed his food “Got any water?”

Her gaze left his mouth when he spoke and went towards the ground “I don’t”. The wind grew louder as it tangled their hair.            

Both were unsure of what to do next. They stayed silent long after the meal.

“My bike's gone.” She finally accepted

“At least you still  **have** your bag.” it was a bit of a dish but it was the closest he could get to looking on the bright side.

“Yeah,” she had no expression in her voice “It probably fell off when it crashed, it’s a miracle that the person who stole my bike didn't find it.” She tried rearranging her bag to comfortably fit Mercury’s shoes and dust in. 

He watched her for a while. She was getting stressed and frustrated with every move she made. 

“UGGGHHHH!” She pushed her bag back down and put her hands on her face. “What are we going to do?” she cried out, but she also started to laugh “How did I let this happen?”

Mercury wasn’t too fond over a miserable Yang, not when this was clearly his fault alone. “Oh don’t be like that, camping’s not too bad. I was on my way to Mistral by foot. Trust me, it won’t take too long to get there.”

_ What am I doing? I don’t need to go to Mistal anymore. And I definitely don’t need anymore camping experiences with Yang. _

“Ugh.” She sighed “Yeah, but that makes the trip a lot longer now, but I’m mostly worried about my bike, I’ve had it for so long- it’s like my other weapon, like a motor weapon or something. I don’t feel like myself without it.”

“You really need a motor vehicle, a machine to feel like yourself?” He scoffed, trying to get her to stop thinking about her bike.

“Yeah, sometimes we need some machines to… feel whole.” She looked at her right arm made of metal. 

He didn’t want to argue with that. “But your bike isn’t attached to you Yang, you kick ass with or without your bike.”

“But it’s my baby!” She dramatised it even though she fully meant it. She really didn’t want to go on without her bike.

_ Wait a minute _

“Mercury!” She exclaimed “Do you just give me a genuine compliment?” she snickered and he smiled before rolling his eyes.

“Don’t get used to it blondie, it’ll never happen again”

However, he did say the night before that she was attractive. Yang counted that as a compliment. She laughed and leaned back. Just what was she going to do? If only she had a tracker on her bike with her keys…

“Oh!” Yang jump a bit in place before reaching down to her front pocket. She pulled her bike keys out. Mercury looked at them shocked.

“What? How were you able to-”

“Fast reflexes.” She answered and jumped up to her feet. “They definitely couldn’t have gotten too far without these. That bike is a heavy bitch.”

Mercury remembered when she attack her yesterday with her bike almost landing on him.

“Come on Mercury.” She grabbed his arm to get him up and she started pulling him onto the road again.

“Are we still going up the mountain?” He asked, as she pushed him in front of her. She grabbed her bag and started walking.

“Yes. I’m hoping if we get high enough we will be able to see if there are any campsites around this area. The one that is closet and off trail probably has my bike.” She said 

“Oh yeah, let's walk up this mountain just to try and spot camp smoke in the lovely hours of night where you can’t see shit.”

“That’s how I found the villager’s theft at that last town.”

_ Go figure. That’s what gave me away? I am losing my touch. _

“Still Yang,” He continued “if we do find one, how are we going to get there in one night? What if the people who stole it actually had some motor vehicles that could carry your bike? What if we get up there and there are more than one campfires near by? There's just too many holes in this and I rather not climb this thing without my shoes.”

“You don’t  _ need  _ your shoes.” She let out a huff “Look, we need to get over this mountain range one way or another. We are on the best and fasted path for that. If we see something, I am willing to do a controlled free fall with momentum. If there is nothing up there then we will just keep going. Besides, I used the same rode to get here and near the top on this side there is an amazing freshwater lake for us to drink.”

He liked the sound of drinking water. “Okay, fare enough.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! no bike, what will they do?  
> I am having too much fun with this guys!  
> next chapter's going to be really long, so buckle up!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one's a long one so buckle up  
> there will be nudity in this chapter :3  
> and a little bit of suicidal tendencies?  
> :/

Twilight roams the sky as Yang and Mercury finally make it to that lake near the top. They ran to the water and dumped their faces in. Both very thirsty.

“Oh that’s so much better.” she rubbed the water on her face and was melted by the feeling of being clean.

“Yikes.” Mercury said while staring at her. She looked down at her hands: now mostly muddy from the dirt falling off her face. “Is my face like that too?” He asked

She looked back to him and it was. They both were a mess. Yang looked around and found another tree to prob Mercury at. She pulled him over to one next to the lake, and cuffed him. She leaned down close to him, looking out from where he was sitting.

“Can you see behind that rock?” she pointed to a quarter of a bolder that had broken before the beach of the lake.

“Not really.” He answered and Yang nodded. She walked over to the rock, took off her shoes and placed them on the grass and laid her bag next to it. She then disappeared behind the rock. He wondered only for a moment what she could be doing before Yang’s jacket was thrown over the rock. Then her pants, then her other layers… Mercury watched her clothes drape over the bolder one by one. Not used to seeing those clothes by themselves instead of on Yang. Every addition on top of the rock got him hotter and hotter in the head. He didn’t even notice how intensely he watched the rock. It’s shape formed into his eyes. Waiting for a slip up.

“You going for a skinny dip without me?” He yelled out, hoping to get a reaction, excited to hear her voice. But all he got was a splash.

He couldn’t help but image a naked Yang swimming. And that was exactly what she was doing just behind the rock. He heard her come up for air and her gasp made him shiver. The sound of the water moving from her stokes was almost seducing. 

Yang was floating on her back, keeping a close eye on the shore to make sure she wasn’t in view. That’s the last thing she needed right now. But the water was the first. She felt awake and present with a clean body. All the dirt and mud gone, just her skin now. She started stroking her limbs and got shocked at the cold metal one.

It wasn’t as if she wasn’t used to it, but when she lost herself in moments like these the material changes on her body where in the back of her mind. She grew up with two arms, and lived for 17 years with both human arms. Her instincts were going to have to change. 

She swam back up to the rock and got her underwear, pants, and undershirt on before coming back around. She took the rest of her clothes and placed them near her boots and bag. Then she sat down near Mercury and started ringing the water from her blonde hair.

“How was it?” He asked     

“Amazing.” she couldn’t lie, she was completely refreshed from all her stress and worries, even forgetting that her bike was gone. 

“Nice. Why not let me take a spin?” 

“I’m not letting you go just to have you swim away.” 

“I won’t go anywhere if you keep my clothes, trust me. Come on, I’ve been sweating in this thing all day-”

“Um, that’s your fault. Literally we could be three town's over in a inn right now if it wasn’t for your little stunt.” She was still so pissed about it now that she didn’t have to focus on hiking a mountain. “Also, you don’t seem like the kind of guy who mind's streaking.”

“Okay yeah, but I’m not escaping without any weapons or armor into these woods, so please?” He shrugged and smiled with his teeth widely. 

She wasn’t going to let him go. But he was also a mess and could probably use the wash off. It was nice in the water, and she somehow wanted to him feel it too.

“Fine. But you are doing this my way.” She uncuffed him from the tree back to having them in cuffed to his front.

“Your way? Sounds fun.” He stood up from the tree. 

They walked over to the beach. She faced him and they both stood there while she watched his body, trying to figure out a way to get his clothes off before she uncuffed him completely, and she wanted to do it without seeing him naked. First she got his shoulder armor off, unbuckled and slipped completely off. 

“Okay-” She went for his stomach but stopped “I’m going to take your shirt off now, is that okay?” Although he wondered why she would even ask her prisoner, he respected her willingness to treat him like a human.   

“Go right ahead.” He winked.

She pulled his shirt up over his stomach. He had abs, not the tonnest looking abs, but a hot six-pack indeed. She lifted it up to his chest and he brought his arms up. He had just the tiniest amount of scruff on his chest and Yang liked it right away. He stretched up in a way that made Yang just want to take a hold of his body. Touch his skin. She pulled his shirt over his head, and he made the cutest face as his head squeezed on out. He opened his eyes and looked very intensely at her, she couldn't help but find it cute. He placed his arms down and allowed the shirt to get caught by the cuffs. 

“Alright, this is what’s going to happen-” Yang started, hiding her blush. Mercury confidently stood two inches away from her with his bare upper body and it put her on the edge. If it wasn’t just his muscles it was his demeanor. He just had a deadpan expression, waiting for her to continue. 

“I’m going to turn around, and let you take off the rest. When you are done tell me and lift yours hands up to your face and i'll uncuff you and you go swimming. I’ll give you 5 seconds to take off your pants and underwear, if your not done in time then I get a show.”

She smiled and winked at him, which almost made him upset. Sexuail comments followed by flurtation was his thing! Now he had nothing to say but:

“Okay.”

“Alright. Then go!” She spun around and started counting

“Five.” she heard the belt and button go

“Four.” he unzipped 

“Three.” then some more rustling 

“Done.” Mercury said. 

She still had her back towards him “Put your hands high up next to your face!”

“Yeah yeah, I know.” He didn’t know how he felt about being exposed and handcuffed nude like this. With a girl in front of him. Yang’s back warmed up with the presence of a naked man behind her. Closing her eyes she faced him again and tilted her head high before opening them again. She met his eyes and they laughed at each other’s blush. 

“Someone’s shy.”

“Yeah, someone.”

Like this she only had his chest up in vision, she uncuffed his hands and took his shirt. He could already feel his aura come back completely.  

“Now pick up your pants and put them in in my hands.” She closed her eyes again with her hands out, his shirt already among the pile.

“Three.”

He quickly reached down to step out of his pants and boxers, suddenly feeling very vulnerable to have his clothes completely off and about to be out of reach.

“Two.” He placed them into her hands, she then faced the sky and opened her eyes again. 

“Alright, get in.” she turned around with the cuff and clothes and sat down on a smaller rock near the shore facing away from it. She heard him take his steps in before he dived. It had been a long time since Mercury completely emerged himself into water. His wrist felt so free from the cuffs, they were the most, or second most sensible to the water. The weightless feeling was nostalgic. The cold refreshing. The things on his mind seemed to settle down and he wanted to stay underwater forever.   

Yang wanted to check on him but questioned her own motives for doing so and she hated herself for it. Once she could hear him break from the surface breathing she yelled out.

“Start singing!”        

Mercury’s numb state of mind fizzled out. “What?” 

“Sing, talk, make noise. I’m still not sure about how comfortable you are with bare-traveling.”

“Seriously? You’ve made me as vulnerable as one can get, I’m not going anywhere.”

“Well you keep surprising me. I could always just take your legs off at anytime-” She blurted out loud. Mercury stopped swimming.

“You looking for a fight Yang? Cause that’s a hell of a way to start one.” She heard heavy splashing that got closer. Instantly she turned around only to meet his eyes, kneeling right in front of her, pissed as hell and soaking wet.

She turned back around fast, embarrassed that she almost saw everything. At least she knew he wasn’t going to attack. She could feel his harsh breath on the back of her head as he talked.

“You would have hated-   _ killed  _ any person who would’ve said that. To even suggest it- How fucking dare you-”

“You're right, I’m sorry.” She held onto her legs and looked at her arm. She regretted it the second she said it, only wanting to give off the impression that she was stronger about the limp lost then he was. That she could joke about it harsher, or take it to the extremes. 

“I wouldn’t know how to respond in that situation. After the Haven fight and realizing that I could just lose track of my arm like that? Misplace it, have it stolen, leave it somewhere? I only want it in one place but yet it’s a removable piece not attached to anything, or anyone.” She felt herself shaking “That was fucked up. I know it. Won’t happen again. I just- ugh. I’m not doing another chase. Not tonight. And I really don’t want to do it- run after and catch a naked guy. Can you just make some more noise while you swam?” 

They stayed frozen for awhile. She heard him retreat back into the lake and swam a bit further out.     

He stood up from where he was, his waist still underwater. He shrugged to himself, tried to forget his anger. He looked out on the clear water lighten by the stars, bordered by thick trees. He wouldn’t mind doing it here. He wouldn’t mind doing it in front of Yang.  

“ _ Run away,” _

Yang perked up. He actually started singing.

_ “Midnight hideaway,”  _ She heard a tad of splashing and guessed he was also dancing a bit. 

_ “Don’t you, fade away- DA DA” _ two big splashes ” _ Till the morning light.” _

He started humming the instrumental break and Yang even snapped her fingers to it.

“You’re pretty good at singing.” She stated. His voice was low and soft, but hit the notes in all the right ways. She never guessed he would have such an amazing voice. 

_ I guess everyone’s got something more to them then what meets the eye _

He continued his bath and kept singing. It seemed like a happy up-beat song, but the lyrics were somber.  

“Hey Mercury?” 

He splashed water on his face and pulled his hair back with his fingers and stopped singing.

“What’s up?”

Yang retaliated a bit. But decided to ask:

“Did you really run away from Salem?” 

He looked out on the water and splashed some into his armpits

“Yeah.” He paused for a bit to keep scrubbing “I did.”

Yang thought for awhile. 

“What made you change your mind?”

He didn’t want to think about it. But it all came back. Salem’s manipulation, Emerald’s willingness; she was turning her into the next Cinder and Emerald felt like it was her duty to be so, to withheld their old savior. Salem was molding Emerald’s powers and her mind into the Grim’s new monster. He remembered the nose that would go off in his old chamber while he waited for Emerald’s new training to be over. That nose, a reminder, telling him he really knew nothing about the world. And it scared him to think that the harsh world he grew up in still had changes he wasn’t ready for. And was about to change into a twisted thing so far already from his understanding; Salem’s design. How dumb he had been to believe he was on the side of evaluation, when he never learned the science or even the terms of it. So he left. And he left Emerald behind to swallow the fate alone.

“I’m a coward,” he shrugged “that's all.” 

Yang almost snapped her head around to look at him in shock. But she didn’t. She never expected to hear Mercury call himself that. He wasn’t the type to her. A coward, that is.

“A coward?” she went “How?”

Mercury looked over to her. Blonde hair wet against her back, body bundled over on a rock. 

“Hey, you’re the guys that want to actually take Salem down, you should know why she is something to fear.”

_ Salem, the ultimate evil.  _ Yang thought, _ But I still haven’t been told anything about her, or what's she’s done, or who she is. None of us have actually. _

Yang kept thinking on about Ozpin’s many secrets about enemies he wanted her and her team to fight- her little sister to battle. 

_ You can’t be part of a world war while still being treated like students, like untrustworthy kids!     _

She got angry at this, but also jealous. Jealous that Mercury, a guy her age, knew all secrets about both sides. Wasn’t in the dark like her and her team.

“That’s why I picked you up.” Yang snapped “So  _ you  _ would get to tell us.”

She heard him sigh uncomfortably.

“Yang.” he spoke genuinely “Look at me.”

“What? No you perve-”

“No- the water’s covering everything. Please, I just need you too look me in the eyes.”

She paused, letting heat grow over her face. Slowly she turned around to him. 

He stood there. His pale skin reflecting off the water like the stars and trees. The water line just under his snail trail and below his waist. His eyes fixated on her with a stance of seriousness she had not seen from him yet. A look she couldn’t parallel because she actually found him too attractive at that moment.   

“Don’t make me help you take Salem down.” Not even blinking “I rather end my life then go an inch closer to her.” 

Yang bounced to her feet.

“But the lives that will end if we don’t-”

“Not my problem.” he scoffed “Everyone gets a choice.”

“Well, not everyone! Not when they don’t know their choices, and not when they’re a prisoner, like you.”

“Yang, please.” He went “Just let me go. I won’t be helpful, I promise that.”

Yang shook her head “I’m still not buying that. Even if your not helpful to us, I won’t leave open the possibility of giving Salem back another fighter use against us.”

He scoffed “I wasn’t that helpful with them either! I’m not a very useful guy Yang. And if you won’t let me go now-” his face changed “if you make me fight Salem later- I’ll just go now.”

He dropped himself completely underwater. And wouldn’t come out.

“Mercury!” She yelled “God damnit!” she tore her long pants off and walked over to him through the water. She grabbed him by the hair with her left hand and yanked him to his feet all the way up from the surface. Surprised how nice it was to feel his grey sobbing locks between her fingers. 

“Oww!” He looked at her. Red eyes shined, clashing with the dark sky.

“Did you just-” Yang was at disbelief, disgusted even. How could he decide to do that right now? To do that ever?

_ Because of Salem? _

Her stomach couldn’t bare the thought, any of it. Mercury felt weak at this moment, too weak to let himself be defined as in Yang’s eyes.

“Haha.” He smirked “You did end up catching a naked man tonight.” He winked.

It occurred to him so quickly that this was his chance. Her weapons still on the beach out of reach. He could easily over power her, no, maybe trick her. Drown her then grabs his things and go.

Yang’s eyes went back to purple and she let his hair go.

“Don’t tell me this is just another one of your flirtatious shenanigans!” She had anger in her voice but her face was smiling.

“Yeah,” He shrugged “guess it didn’t really work-” she pulled the back of his neck towards her and embraced him. Left arm over his shoulder, robot arm on his lower back. He did nothing as she hugged him. Only standing in her arms. Feeling terrible that yeah, she saw it. She saw it right through him. A pit in his stomach grew as he had the urge to get away from her. He didn’t want her damn pity at all. She was his captor, this was his retaliation, all he has to use against her is his own life- why was she getting so touchy about it?

But he couldn’t move away. And he couldn’t admit that he felt safe in her embrace, not even in his head. Cursing her in his thoughts as his right arm involuntarily made its way to her back and stroked it over her clothes very slightly. 

_ I couldn’t   _ He admitted 

“Hey-” she whisper into his ear “I know I’m the last person you want to talk to, or listen to. But please, talk and listen to people you trust, people who care about you, okay?” 

Only one person came to mind. Who he abandoned after giving up on her just so he could save his own skin. 

God he wanted to cry.

“Uh, Yang?” He choked a bit “Unless you want another um situation... from my uh…bone. Maybe we should...”

Yang snapped out of it. “Oh, yes, let’s not have another one of those.” She let him go and he instantly ducked under water. Bubbles came from the spot for a long bit before he poked his head up only to have his eyes out of the water to look at her. Yang’s heart skipped a bit, thinking how cute he was. His eyes went down then back up at her. He then slowly lifted his mouth from the surface. 

“Nice panties, by the way.”

She looked down at her bright yellow panties with black silhouetted bumblebees. She looked back up to him mad and red.

“Hey!” she started splashing him and he lifted his head from the water warmly laughing as he splashed her back.

“No no! These are my only dry clothes! Stop!” she laughed “They’re going to get moldy!”

Mercury stopped splashing. “Better than rust.” he let out. Something he always said whenever Emerald or Cinder would complain about the Beacon rooms. 

“Oh my god!” she exclaim. “Rust is the worst! I mean they are waterproof, why not make sure the inner mechanisms that keep the actual thing in function are also?”

“It’s not like water actually gets in, it’s only-”

“Sweat, that’s all that can get in!”

“I mean a few drops here and there yeah,”

“But in the middle of a fight when you’re always moving-”

“It’s impossible to try and keep up with your tech along with your opponent.”

“Yes! God, it’s so annoying!” She said “How long have you had to deal with-” she accidentally looked down then remembered he was naked. Thank goodness the water was dark.

“A long time.” he stated ”But once you get to understanding how it’s built, it gets a lot easier at maintaining. But you do end up becoming your own mechanic.”

“Yeah, I figured.” She looked at her own arm. Suddenly asking him “How did you get your legs?”

He tensed up a bit and leaned further back into the water. A look that Yang recognized it immediately .  

“How did you get your arm?”

Yang didn’t want to remember.

_ Wouldn’t Adam have told him? _

“It was cut off.” she stated flatly

“Yeah, same.” he replied similarly

They looked at each other very seriously for a brief moment before breaking into chuckles. 

“It’s nice to know how much you get it.” Yang smiled

“Actually, yeah same.” he was honestly surprised at that and smirked almost lovingly to nothing in particular. But it was aimed at Yang.

She turned from him and started walking back up to the shore.

“Enjoy the rest of your bathtime, Mercury.”

He watched her go, her butt moving in very tight and wet underwear.

“But you just took the enjoyment part out.” 

She smiled, happy he was sounding like himself again, regardless of his perverted nature. She sat back down on her rock facing away from him. She was going to wait for her clothes to dry before putting her pants back on. It was starting to get cold though. She got back up and started looking for firewood close by. Collecting twigs then rolling over a dead log to break up. She got some matches from her bag and started getting a fire going.

“I’m coming out now.” He called

“Oh, wait a moment.” She collected his clothes and handed them over, trying not to look at him as he stood there with only his hands covering himself. She had planned this whole routine of how she would get him dressed while cuffing him as soon as possible. Instead, she just turned her back on him and waited. Once he was done he stepped before her and cocked his eyebrow before offering his hands.

She cuff his hands in front of him just so he could eat without her help. He sat down next to the fire and put his hands out towards it.

“Oh that’s nice…”

He closed his eyes and swayed a bit like he was doing his happy dance. Yang got a kick on how cute this guy could be sometimes.

“What’s with that look?” He called her out “Upset about my recent wardrobe change? Miss my other suit?” He chuckled  

“Naw, you look good in black.”

“And those bees suit you as well.”

She looked down embarrassed again not realizing she was still pantless. But she didn’t want to let him know she was uncomfortable. Afterall, nothing he hasn’t already seen. But she was mostly dry now and got up to put her pants back on. She waited for other sexuail comments but it stayed silent. When she turned back to the fire Mercury was staring at it. Watching as the ambers grew on wood that was swallowed in flames. Waiting for them to break off and fall into the sky before turning to ash and lost into the night sky, disappearing completely. 

She sat down next to him and also starred. He was sitting with his legs spread out, cuffed arms in his lap. His feet much too close to the fire for flesh. The lighting off the fire really showed off the craftsmanship of his prosthetics.  

“Your legs are really pretty.” She blurted. Knowing he would probably think she was pitying him, just like she did when others told her how ‘pretty’ her arm was. She couldn’t stop the thought from becoming verbal though. 

Fliching, she looked up at him who was staring at her in disbelief. But not one of anger, or even confusion. 

It was the first time he had ever gotten that complement actually. Being told they were pretty… it made no sense to him. But he was overjoyed at the same time.

“Really?” he breathed out. Yang couldn’t believe how sweet and innocent he sounded. And she enjoyed it.

“Yes.” She nodded at him “The craftsmanship is amazing, a work of art from what I see.”

“Heh.” He tried to collect himself a bit “It’s not that great, I made one of the forms a little bigger on this side and it still drives me crazy.”

“Hold on-” Yang exclaimed “Did you craft these yourself?”

Mercury's heart skipped a beat for some reason after hearing an impressed Yang. No one asked him about his legs like this. Usually when they did, it was bad conversation glossing over topics he didn’t want to think about. Getting questions like this... was nice. He stretched his arms out for his legs to roll up his pants a bit.

“Not all of it. It’s an old model, breaks easily. I had to build the replacements. You don’t know how many times I’ve stubbed my toe and lost it. Like really I made like a toe ever two weeks before I decided that hey I should just make them into metal clogs instead.” He chuckled and Yang laughed. She looked over to her bag.

“With my old arm,” She started “while I was making my way to Haven right after I literally just got used to the functions of it,”

_ Oh _

Mercury didn’t know it was  _ that _ recent. He assumed it was just something he never noticed before, but now looking at the timeline, he came to the conclusion it must have happened at the fall of Beacon...

“I was driving for miles, it was the first day of the journey. But then at some point I looked down at my hand and I was missing my pinky finger!” she laughed.

“No!” he cried “That’s literally the worst feeling, exspeasually with travel. What did you do?”  

She stared back into the fire. “Well, actually I kind of broke down a bit. I went back and tried to look for it. Almost went all the way back home. It drove me crazy- I just wanted to get to Ruby at the time but I was just so crushed that it would just, pop off like that.” 

Mercury felt Yang’s pain. It’s never something you image to not have. Even today if he still had metal toes and they fell off he would go mad and fall defeated by his own self.

Yang went on “I finally gave up and got off my bike. Started punching trees and cried in the woods for a bit.” Her voice was much lower than before. “But when I finally looked back at my arm again, it was there.” 

She let all the air out of her lungs “It was just bended under my hand when I grabbed the handle bars. I never noticed my grib wasn’t all the way on.”

The wind through the trees haunted over them as they stayed in silence. Mercury was never good at this sort of thing. But his legs have tricked him like that before. Made him feel hopeless. He felt for her. He scooched his body a little closer to her, wanting to reach out to her shoulder and give her comfort, but his hands were tied. Instead he just placed his head on her shoulder instead. Embarrassed by the touch, but he felt like he needed to comfort her. 

“That sucks.” He simply said. And started rubbing his forehead on her like if he was trying to rub her shoulder. 

Yang felt his warm cheek on her arm. His grey hair rustling on her jaw. It definitely made her 100% better than before, but her demender didn’t change.

“Yeah…”

Now Mercury felt stuck on her, not knowing if that was a message to get off or not. He didn’t feel like getting off for some reason. He looked over to Yang but not daring to turn his face towards her. Then he noticed that he could see her cleavage perfectly.

Red-faced, he swung back up. Yang felt more cold than ever, not realizing how much his touch made her feel safe.

_ Yang, don’t think about that dumb shit _

But it was too late, she actually wondered if she found him attractive, or cute: crush material. Well it at least kept her busy from remembering the failure of her first day of her journey up towards her mom’s. But she hadn’t had crushes on people, people had crushes on Yang and she tried them out for a bit. There might have been a girl in middle school back on the island Yang always followed and teased, but it wasn’t like they talked or even knew each other, she didn’t like her because she was a cutie or interesting person with a good body- to like someone to Yang was because of what they did, who they were, not from their outward appearance. She just didn’t know if personal crushes worked that way. It was something that they both had wondered. But still, even after all the fighting and anger, her stalking and imprisoning, his betrayal and hatred for all things she loved- she was baffled that they could even get on this level of kindness with each other. After everything they went through, Mercury made an effort to comfort her as she did back in the lake. 

“Thanks, Mercury.” she said all of a sudden. It caught him off guard in the middle of his weird thoughts.

“What? Why?”

“I guess, it's just nice to talk about it sometimes. I actually never told anyone that before.”

“You haven’t?” he wasn’t sure why he felt amazing after she said that.

“No, I- feel like that was one of the weakest moments in my life-” she then looked at Mercury, wondering why she would tell this to the enemy, her prisoner. He would just use it against her later.

“That’s saying something if it’s coming from someone like you.” Another genuine response, she didn’t know what to do with him. She hadn’t even talked to Ruby, her dad, or Blake about this stuff. Yet Mercury could do it better than she expected her friends to, her family to. At first it was endearing, but now it just keeps catching her off guard. 

She couldn’t respond in the end, she just stayed confused. And then another possibility came to her head:

_ His trying to get me to trust him, trying to make me lose _

Even though she told herself that she was proud for figuring it out, it still stung so much and she couldn’t think why.

She then noticed Mercury’s breathing was really off. He was staring at the fire like he always did, thinking of something terrible it always seemed. 

“I um-” Mercury started talking “I’ve had like, lots of weak moments in my life…” His voice was very dry. He never had any urge to talk about it ever, to think about it ever. He wasn’t sure why, it might be the air around the fire. He might just want to give Yang even more of his vulnerability it seemed. 

_ I just hate myself   _ that’s what told him why. He didn’t question whether or not it was true.

“I think, a big one actually, was probably when I saw you the other day-”

Yang was instantly insulted but Mercury shook his head before she could react any further.

“I- I was on my way to you, you know.”

She remembered him mentioning that somewhere, yes, when she stomped on his camp and gave her excuses of the like. Was he actually telling the truth?

Her eyebrows furrowed. “What do you mean?”  

He let out a shaky sign. “I left to give back your arm Yang. I mean, there are plenty of other reasons too but this is what- what actually got me to step out and start bolting as fast as I could.”

He wouldn’t look at her and he wouldn’t let her respond.

“I had the idea , maybe- I don’t know, somehow  _ fix   _ that I did that to you. At the time I was just pissed we lost, angry that Cinder- she... didn’t make it.” She was a bitch, but in a way Cinder was his older sister, and that never changed from the first time they had ever met. “I took it on purpose, and I hated myself for it. You don’t just walk out with someone’s limp like that. That was just, wrong. I mean, I need both of them, they’re a pair- but I feel like losing an arm would be ten times worse because there is sooo much more shit we do with our hands. At the time, I knew it would be something Cinder would do and I was proud of it. I wanted to act like I was better than the whole idea that these limbs- prosthetics- made me feel whole. That I was above the whole 'losing a limp' thing. The malfunction reminders on your hand kept going off everyday. And everyday it occurred to me that I did that to you. I took away your limb.” He closed his eyes from the fire. 

“I guess I just couldn’t stop thinking about what I had done to you, and how it made me realize that I wasn’t cut out for this at all, not if we were going to take advantage like that. So I ran, and I wanted to make up for it.”

“Mercury-” She started. He then opened his eyes and stared at her with no particular expression at all.

“But then when I saw you I realized that was all a lie I told myself.”

Yang froze. Another long silence of them staring at each other. Mercury looked back to the fire.

“I was using you, using my prosthetics- anything I could to come up with a good enough excuse for myself to leave. And how I tried to turn it into something even heroic. It’s pathetic.” Mercury sighed then stretched his back, wanting to lean back but his hands weren’t allowed to.

“I saw you and realized I’m not that person, not someone who tries to fix shit, not some nice person. I left because Emerald no longer liked me.” Mercury could tell Yang was getting the wrong idea.

“Not like that, I mean, as in a person. Emerald probably never liked me as a person when we first met, but we made a good team and by the time we got to Beacon we were like, I don’t know, some kind of superhero duo. Like I was the tank and she was the brains, but she kicked as much ass as I did. And everyone knew it. We ended up becoming like, best friends. I never had any friends, and I didn’t think I ever would, cause I never liked people and people never liked me- but with Emerald, and even Cinder, I felt like it was… everyone else’s same idea of having a home, a family. They were my family.”

Yang was wide eyed. Sitting and absorbing.  _ Cinder, a family? _   This all felt too long and detailed for him to make up on the spot. But he had acted before.

“I should stop.” He said quietly after watching her expression.

“I feel like you shouldn’t until you actually want to.” She knew he had another point in there, from where he was going. For a moment, Mercury’s eyes looked very glossy.

“But when Cinder died... Emerald and I weren’t the same anymore- we both blamed ourselves for what happened. And of course at first we talked about it to each other, like we always did.” Mercury wanted to hide his face in case he would start getting too physically emotionally.

“I told her how ashamed I was when I took your arm. And she told me to ignore it, and that’s never what Emerald does. I mean, her and Cinder were a lot closer, and yeah it made me angry sometimes, but she just- started to act like her, speak like her, starting waring red. It fucking just-” He buried his hands into his face and with a muffled voice: “It took her and Cinder, this whole thing! I just wanted at least one of them back, and everyday I could see Emerald looking at me in a different way. In a way Cinder did, but to me she was aloud to, she was the leader, but Emerald looks at me like I am below her, when Cinder manly did it cause I’m- we’re still kids. But Emerald knows she's more powerful than me and she loves it. She saw how fragile I was about putting people in a place I understood, she was angry I started, I don’t know, not being as confident about our side, about myself. She can’t look at me anymore, I wasn’t her friend but a weakling in her eyes. It felt un-redeemable.” He got his hands back out. “When I saw you all I wanted to do was to run. Because I wasn’t the guy who wanted to pay for his sins, I used it as an excuse to let go of my sins. I knew I had nothing to say, and I knew I hadn’t fully accepted  _ anything _ , and I felt helpless and desperate. I miss Emerald…. and I don’t know what to do now.”          

She watched him, almost picking up her arm to reach him, but then he continued, switching to a completely light-hearted mood. 

“Not that I should be too worried about that, I can’t really make those choices of what to do when I am forced into it.” he picked up his cuffs grinning at her.

“Mercury,” she didn’t know what to say

“Don’t say anything.” Mercury smiled “I just, kind of needed to get all that off my chest.” He looked at her. “Sorry, I’m a terrible person-” Yang was the one who could actually touch his shoulder and rub it gently. But her arm also started rubbing his back, up and down his shoulder blades, to the spot on the back of his neck where his hairline starts. It was almost like a massage, and she found her arm on his furthest shoulder, pulling him completely into an embrace. She leaned her head on him and he did the same. 

“Thanks.” he told her.

“Hey, weak life moments are shitty.” she turned her head to look at him “If what you  _ are  _ saying is true, then I’m happy to have helped motivate you to get out, even if it was only the thought itself. Sometimes-”

“I was serious about not saying anything, I just don’t want to talk about it.”

“But what choice do you have, my prisoner?” she jokingly grabbed his cuffs and swung them around. His fingers slightly grazing the top of her hand as she did so. She then gave him a sarcastic evil grin. He pouted trying to hide a smile.

“Oh please, my captor, spare me!” He mocked and they both smiled.

“Never!” 

For some reason, it felt like a good time for a tickle fight. She reached for both of his armpits.

“Cutchie cutchie chu!” He thought she made a very cute face.

“Sorry, not ticklish.” He was. His thighs and neck were the worst, but he wasn’t going to let her know that.

“No!” she cried, in disbelief she went for his stomach and she felt his abs flex.

“Now this just hurts.” He sighed with a warm smile.

“Haha,” Yang retaliated. “What about this!”

She started to tickle his neck, and he instantly moved up his shoulders to block it while laughing.

“No!!” He cried.

“I knew there had to be one spot! It’s always somewhere on the body!” He was bucking his body trying to roll his way from her grasp, she only tickled him more.

“Feel my wrath, Mercury!”         

“I feel it, I FEEL IT!” Mercury pled though giggles “PLease- ah! Stop!”

She smirked and let go, allowing him to catch his breath.

“Man, that was a total new image onto your whole ‘bad-boy’ persona.” Yang teased. “I should start calling you Mer-cutie!”

“Oh my god.”

Yang burst out laughing and Mercury just shook his head.

“Your lucky I have my arms tied, I wouldn’t let my hands off you.” He didn’t mean it to come out as sexuail as it did, but him and Yang already imagined it the other way- and they could see it in the other’s eyes. They both broke eye contact, looking anywhere else.  

“You hungry? I’m going to get the food.” Yang sat up and strolled over to her bag.

Mercury got up and walked over to one of the larger trees around the fire and leaned against it. There was enough room for two and Yang joined him. All she really had where protein bars and some instance noodles. She had a little campfire compacted pot that was perfect for anywhere, as long as there was water to boil she had a meal. 

They ate their noodles fast and then sat silently watching the fire. Neither knowing who fell asleep first.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They have some bonding moments~  
> Sorry about Mercury's attempted suicide... I know I'm not a great writer, but let me know if I did anything to dishonor/disrespect the topic  
> btw, the song Mercury was singing is called 'Fade away' by the Bodeans


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another fight brakes out!   
> Sorry if it's not understandable, I only just started writing fighting scenes  
> but holy mother they are fun to write! (no gore or character death thou, im keepin it PG)

He woke up to a noise that was distant. He noticed something also tickling his noise that smelled like sunflowers. The campfire was only burning coals now. He looked above him and noticed weight on his shoulder while he saw lights in the trees on the opposite side of the lake.

“Don’t move.” Yang told him.

He then noticed Yang was leaning on him as he was her, they must have fallen asleep on each other. Slowly, Yang lifted herself and the overpowering warmth she had pressed against Mercury slowly lifted. She crawled over to the fire and started stomping whatever was left of it. Then they heard tons of Motor bike roars. 

“Woo hoo!” a group of people showed up on motorbikes on the lake, doing wheelies and donuts. Making tons of noise.

“There is five of them.” Yang counted the motor bikes.

“I think I see a few- maybe one of them carrying two.

Yang scoffed “They’re going to attract Grim, what are they, idiots?”

“Sounds about right,” Mercury whispered back “they’re probably a bunch of bandits, as long as they don’t see us we should be fine.”

“But what if a grim attacks them from this way?”

“If we stay quite, I don’t think the Grim will even notice us with those guys being like that. And if there is one, we can handle it-”

As they watched the motorbikes on the beach one of their headlights shined on the largest bike as it did a wheelie. A flash of a familiar yellow made their jaws drop.

“You got to be-”

“Fucking kidding me.”

Almost at a disbelief they kept watching Yang’s bike riding in donuts on the other side of the lake.

“They fucking hot-wired her!” Yang exclaimed. “I’m a little impressed actually, I put up like three layers of top-notch security in that baby.”

One of the bike fell through the sand and into the water a bit.

“I think they’re drunk.”

“We need to get my bike before the Grim get here.”

“How?”

Yang just stood up. “Wait here.”

“No.” he grabbed her hand with both of his, after all they kind of where a pair being chained together. “That’s too risky- let me help.”

“No.” Yang snapped “They’re just a bunch of bandits, I can handle them myself-” 

She was cut off by a roar that shattered the whole lake. And to both of their surprise, the gang on the other side responded by cheering.

“Here comes the first one!” They all started shouting. A beowolf started lurking out of the trees near the bandits. All together they attacked it, most using guns, and two of them usings weapons that would be found in a hunter’s academy. The grimm was defeated instantly.

“Keep making noise ladies! I want to blow off some steam tonight!” the kept hallowing into the sky.

Yang sat back down next to Mercury.

“Fuck.” she huffed. Not as sure if she could take on that many, she has taken on way more before, but two of them where probably trained hunters and huntresses, derailed from their training. With the help of six other people with guns, Yang knew she couldn’t take them on by herself. 

“I could sneak up on them.” she concluded. “When the next grim comes by, I’ll get over there and-” 

“You know they will see you, most of them didn’t even get off their bikes for that fight. Did you notice the girl riding your’s didn’t? She looked like she had some serious skill too.”

Yang didn’t want to admit he was right when defiantly he was. However…

“I can’t just give you your weapons and uncuff you.” she stated. Feeling a little hopeless now with her bike in the wrong hands and no right-way to get it back.

“Yang,” he pleaded. The way he said her name almost made her shiver. She loved it when he said her name.

_ Why- _

Mercury continued “Let’s get your bike back, let me help you.” He leaned forward a bit to looked her in the eye because it was too dark to see, but he accidentally went a little too close. He felt his lips on her warm soft skin. He didn’t want to breath. He was kissing Yang’s face, in the space between her noise and the side of her mouth, right above her lips. His noise tickled Yang’s cheek.

“Are you trying to kiss me to let you go!?” Yang yelled and pushed herself off of him and stood up. Both of their stomachs twisted in terror when they heard Yang’s voice echo loudly over the lake three times. 

The reactions of the gang was gut wrenching.

“There's someone else here!”

“A woman, that way-”

“Let’s ride boys!”

The gang started going around the lake.

“God-Fucking-SHIT.” Yang whispered and she stomped. She started grabbing her things together in the backpack.

“We’ll never out run them!”

“Well, we have to try!”

“Yang!” He got to his feet and got her to turn around and face her. “They’re bandits, bandits kill. I don’t want to die by those guys, not when we could fight together. If we have a chance, let's use it! Let’s fucking live. Let’s fucking protect each other. I am more than willing to slip back into these if it means we get to fucking live.”

They were more than halfway towards them. It was now or never, she didn’t have a choice. She yanked his shoes out and his dust as well as her own. She took the keys from her side pocket and uncuffed him. There was not moment in his hesitation, but then he quickly unbuckled his belt and slid his pants down. Yang was confused until he started playing with his metal kneecaps. She started reloading her gauntlet and arm. He pulled back his pants, put the dust into his shoes and slipped them on. Lights shined on them through the trees, so bright the whole woods lite up in their rays. Yang got her backpack on as soon as they heard the gang go:

“Look! I see her!”

“She’s blonde!”

“Oh, a boyfriend?”

“But what about our little fun?”

The bikes had swarmed them, each bike stopping in a perfect circle around them. Yang and Mercury got into fighting stances, standing back to back.

Yang’s bike turned off first and the headlights went out. A women got off the bike. She couldn’t have looked older than they were, she had two rings in her right eyebrow and short blue hair that blended in with the night sky. The other bikes had also turned their engines off, but the lights still stayed blinding them. Mercury gave them props for already placing them at a disadvantage other than being outnumbered. But he also felt his aura come back to him better than ever, he wasn’t too scared of these losers.

“Look what we have here.” The woman folded her arms “Doesn’t she look familiar fellas?” they heard beyond the lights of men and women agreeing with her, until the youngest sounding voice chipped in.

“Naw, who is she?” he asked. 

“That-” she pointed at Yang “is the disgraced Huntress who ruined the Vital festival, remember Fern? Pretty much the last thing airing before the CCT was cut.”

Yang’s heart felt heavy.  _ That’s right… _ she thought

“She attacked some student after she kicked his ass!” someone else called out.

“Sore winner much?”

“Are you sure it’s her? I think that girl had two arms.”

“No,” the blue-headed woman reply “I remember that face, it was her. Guess she lost more than her rep after that stunt.”

Yang hadn’t let the insult get to her before, she knew that they were ignorant to the whole thing and it didn’t bother her- but her arm… He eyes were about to go red.

“Disgraced Huntress? Look who’s talking.” Mercury snapped “We saw your moves, you had the privilege of being taught and you use it for bike theft?” He scoffed “Plus, I heard that guy had it coming; a useless dude who ya probably wouldn’t even recognize on the streets.”

That comment put all her rage away and she started to laugh out loud. He chuckled at her while the gang stood annoyed and confused.

“Bike theft?” The girl went on “That’s a pretty big accusation.”

“Oh shut it!” Yang snapped.

“Yeah, that’s her bike you’re sitting on, drop the act. None of you look like you can buy your ride. All of these bikes look tons better than any of ya uglies.”

Yang liked being on his side of the fight, he come up with the best sass to get on the enemy’s nerve. Just like he had done to her. 

“Why you little-” a lady under the light went.

“Stop Relsh.” The leading woman took a step closer.

“We actually found this bike, some loser left it on the side of the mountain, abandoning a perfectly good bike, we couldn’t just leave it there to starve…” She stroked the seat of Yang’s yellow bike “Plus, I think it likes me, we’ve bonded and everything.”

Yang yelled at her “Give it back or you will be sorry!” she could hear Mercury say under his breath “as good at smack as ever.” she fought the urge to wack him on the back of the head.   

“Haha! That’s funny, you should wright jokes.”

“Oh yeah? Here's my newest one right now, and this is the punchline!” 

Mercury smacked his hand into his face as Yang ran to her and started swinging. The girl took out something from behind her and swung it up to block Yang. It was a sickle. She then rotated her weapon and flung Yang’s arm away.

“Nice one Obal!”

They heard loading sounds from all around them. And Yang jumped back to Mercury.

“Plan B?” He asked

“Plan B.”

He grabbed her around the waist and kick blasted them up into the air. They heard blasts go off, but from up here they were outside of their lights and almost stayed invisible. They could see where everyone was and started attacking on their way down. Yang was met by another girl who jumped into the air and attacked her with a long blade. They’re attack sent Yang further up into the air while the red head who attacked her landed towards the ground. Mercury had landed on a bike and kicked three heads off their bikes, the ones who only used guns. Obal attacked him with her sickle. He was much faster than her, dodging her swings and kicking her ever so often. But as soon as she leaned away, stepped back, firearms would shoot at him. But it was nothing he wasn’t used to. He jumped out of the way and even tricked them to shoot at one of their own, sending him flying off his bike. 

Yang had punched the ground as she went down. The Long-sword Huntress leaping out of the way and then saw her friend get shot off his bike by Mercury.

“Cray!” She cried.

“We got it Relsh, just keep her busy!” Opal called out to her tank. Mercury was heading straight for her and then a little kid stepped before him. He was more than a head shorter than Yang.

“Get him, Fern.”

The kid all of a sudden ate something shiny. His eyes grew green and so did his aura. Mercury lifted his kick and the kid grabbed it mid-air, he threw Mercury towards the last person still on their bike pointing a dust gun at his face. He got hit and it sent him towards the kid again, who punched him in the back.

“Pretty neat, huh?” Obal walked up to Fern and put a hand on his back “Watch out for this guy’s semblance, he's a sponge.”

The kid jumped a top Mercury and started punching, each hit harder than Yang’s. 

Relsh was a good sword fighter. Yang hadn’t gotten a good hit in and she hadn’t ether. They went back at each other. Yang was punching but ended up blocking when Relsh started doing some ulta fast swipes, she could hardly keep up with her. 

Mercury got his feet under the kid and kicked him up once, twice, then nailed his side and sent him to the ground. But Fern got up unphased. He just turned to a bike on the ground near him and picked it up.

Yang was at her wit’s end, but though instinct she grabbed Relsh’s blade with her right hand. Relsh tried to pull it out but it was stuck, she gave Yang a stink eye who Yang responded with a smirk. Yang pulled the sword behind her and started punching the other huntress’s face.

Mercury turned around to see a bike get flung at him. He barely dodged it, and watched it go over his head straight at Yang.

“Yang!” he cried, but it was too late, both her and the other girl got smacked on their heads and they went flying along with the bike. 

“Relsh!” Both Fern, Obal, and the other guy yelled out to their teammate.

“Man, you guys are a terrible team.” Mercury smirked. He couldn’t protect Yang, all he had now was his charm. But nonetheless, he was pissed.

His body seemed to disappear to Fern before he felt his presents behind him.

“Watch out!” Opal came rushing in but he got him down in a headlock then sponned him over. Opal was right over him before he knew it, and he started windmilling her attacks away. Again, the guy behind him started shooting, but this time Mercury didn’t get out in time. He was blasted in the back and fell forward. Opal stomped her foot on his back to keep him down.

The other guy started blasting him some more which made Mercury cry out in pain. He saw Fern getting up from behind him.

“And last words?” Opal grinned

A bike flew towards her and she dodged it by leaping back.

“Dont-” Mercury looked over “Even-” and so did the rest of them. Flames where coming from a section of the woods.

“TOUCH HIM!” Yang was in super saiyan mode now. Red eyes zapped forward and quickly went up to Fern. He got hit first, then retaliated. He was shorter than her and used that to get in her blind spots. She swung her arm hard towards him. He dodged it and smiled. Then she saw Opal’s sickle go for her throat.

Mercury’s leg propped up in front of her, blocking the attack. They both looked at each other for a second and she went for Opal’s gut while Mercury brought his leg down on Fern, both hitting them and they flung back. The guy with the gun started shooting at them now that his team mates were out of range from his attacks. Yang pulled Mercury out of the way with so much momentum that his feet were in the air. She swung him around and Mercury kicked the gun out of that guy’s hands and on the second swing knocked him right in the jaw and sent him flying off his bike. Before their momentum went down, he sent two blast over at Fern and Opal, hitting the later.

Fern leap at Yang right as she was letting go of Mercury, and couldn’t evade his attack. She was punched in the face and went flying towards a tree that broke.

“Shit!” He yelled. He got on his hands and started spinning. Shooting all around him and creating a vast tornado. It all came crashing down on Fern. 

Mercury got up and was about to run over to Yang but he heard a shot go off, hitting his leg.

Opal was up behind the smoke of his attack, at the handle of her sickle there was also a gun. She was surprised that last hit didn't sent him flying. Mercury turned to her and got into attack mode, then he saw Fern slowly get up to his feet in the corner of his eye.

“Didn’t I tell you?” Opal huff, trying to maintain a grin “This guy’s a sponge.”

He felt Fern’s aura rise and Mercury felt doomed.

“Well so am I!”

Mercury yanked his head around and Yang was right there, right behind him. She was ready to kick ass.

“I go low, you go high?” He winked, putting himself in front of Fern.

“Wouldn’t want it any other way.”

Together, they leaped towards them. Yang was on Opal and Mercury was on Fern. He got a few kicks in that didn’t seem to budge the boy at all, Mercury then leaned his body forward. Yang swung hard only to dodge Opal and roll over Mercury’s back. She slugged Fern in his right cheek and slammed in him into to ground, leaving a dent in the earth. Mercury rotated behind him and delivered a back kick right under Opal’s jaw, sending her flying.

When she hit the ground Yang and Mercury got up, still in stances, waiting to see if the fight was over. And it was.

They both sighed in relief. “How’d you know I would get what you were saying back there?” Yang asked and he shrugged

“I didn’t, I actually planned on going low.” He smiled. She couldn’t tell whether or not he was joking. And it made them both laughed.

Fern groaned and slowly moved up.

“Wow.” Mercury said “You really are a sponge.” Fern flinched and protected his face. Yang walked over to him and patted his head.

“Go get your friends and run home, this isn’t a safe place to be napping about.”

“I’ll say.” Mercury agreed. "You really shouldn't be here kid, if these guys are willing to use someone your age, then they truly are just a bunch of sad idiots. Not even threatening ones at that." They walked over to her bike and Yang placed the keys in. Mercury got on the back.

“I’ll be taking this back now! ” 

Yang felt like she was on top of the world as they rode off on her bike.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh man!! I had a good idea for this fic until this point, who knows whats going to happen next!?!? next update is probably going to take like forever, but it'll be coming! I swear!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WOW  
> I didn't forget about this story!! I promise!  
> Sorry for the few of you who have been waiting for an update, just spent the last few months traveling~  
> (feels so nice to have a cpu again) And I come back to MORE RWBY!!  
> I really wanted to get this whole story out before vol 6, buuuut here we are! No longer a possible AU but ima still writing soooo.....  
> I do feel bad for keeping yall waiting so long! And I feel so grateful that someone out there actually likes my work? This is all new stuffins

They rode over and down the mountain, both really tired and beat after a match like that, just trying to get away from the bandits before they came to. Mercury was keeping his head on her back, resting his injuries.

“I can’t believe we found your bike.”

“I can’t believe they practically gave it back to me. I mean, really, what are the chances of that ever happening?”

Mercury laughed. “We made a pretty good team back there.”

Yang smiled “We fucking slayed.”

 

Mercury hadn’t even noticed he fell asleep on Yang until they were already parked next to a wooden building.

“Hey sleepy, rise and shine.” Yang slowly giggled as Mercury whipped his head up. He had drooled on Yang’s shoulder. He stumbled off the bike as Yang got up, taking out some pretty hefty chains to secure her bike. Mercury wanted to make a joke, but he was too tired to do anything but stand there and wait for her to be done. He took this chance to look around, and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. The town they rolled into was really small, one street size. He could see a pub, as it was the only building with a sign on it. The five other buildings stayed anonymous. He then turned around and looked up at the building they were parked at. It was an Inn.

“Alright.” Yang stood back from her bike, dusting her hands off. “That should do the trick.” The bike was comically drenched in locks and Mercury couldn’t help but let out a snort.

“Hey-” Yang turned to him with a stern voice, but with a large smile on her face she wasn’t even aware of. “-better this than losing my baby again!”

Mercury shrugged. Unknowingly smiling at her as well. “How far did we drive?”

They both started walking around the building to find the entranced “I went over the next mountain, I mean this is the closest town, but I think we went far enough from those guys.”

They walked into the quite inn and asked for a double room. Both were disappointed to hear they only had a single bed space left in the building.

“Oh jeez,” Yang said “Sorry that just won’t work for us, do you know if there are any other inns that have another opened room?”

The woman behind the counter shrugged. “Well, considering that we are the only inn, I say maybe have a little chat with the hay farmer just outside the town, before the mountain woods. He’ll make you work for your night but his a nice guy once you get used to his-ugh- nudist lifestyle.”   

“We’ll take the room.” Mercury said, looking back at Yang “It’s fine, I’ll sleep on the floor, anything better than another bug sleepover.”

Yang sighed and paid for the room, they both went upstairs to 2A. It was like a closet, really only made for one person. The bed was hardly able to fit one of them. As the door closed they both felt some heavy tension. In a room together, alone, with hardly any space to breath.

Yang signed again, sleep was taking over her. “There is no hot water, but I still kind of want to take a shower with soap.”

Mercury hummed “Then I call going first this time.”

Yang nodded, she could wait for sleep. “Okay.”

She grabbed her things and started going out the door to let him have some privacy before saying: “Don’t go anywhere”

“Oh I kno-” They both stopped. Yang slipped back into the room with disbelief. The room was stale and quite.

None of them even realized that Mercury had been uncuffed and loaded with working pistols for hours now. He never even once thought to escape, and she never once thought to tie him back up. They both were embarrassed by this.

“I guess, we kind of… got lost in the moment, huh?” He shrugged and sat down on the bed.

“Yeah…” she walked over to him and gestured for his shoes.                        

He leaned over and took them off for her. Knowing that he would risk a fight in this room. Knowing he would probably jump out the window and never be seen again.

__But you don’t want to be away from Yang_ _

His mind echoed that around as he handed her his shoes, not wanting to look her in the eye with a flushed face.

“Give me your hands.” she whispered. He lifted them up to her and then retreated.

“Wait, let me get my shirt off now-” He pulled it over his head tugging it forward. His chest bare once again in front of her. He looked back up with messy hair and threw his shirt on the ground.

__Stop being so hot_ _

He lifted his hands again with a warm smirk that made her heart race. She put the cuffs around his hands as they watched each other.

“Can I get these wet?” He whispered.

“W-what?”

“In the shower,” he smiled at her knowing what she had misunderstood “are these okay to bring in there.”

“Oh!” she couldn’t look at him again. Cuffed, shirtless on a bed, with that fucking jawline. “I-uh, probably not. I’ll just wait out here then.”

“Oh.” his eyes went slanted, watching her with desire. His mouth opened just a little bit and it made Yang’s hands shake as she uncuffed him.

“Hmp.” He leaned down and grabbed his shirt off the ground. He stood back up much closer to Yang. “Guess I’ll see you later.”

She couldn’t even look at him “Yeah…”

He quickly went over to the bathroom. He closed the door and had the worst time trying to get his pants off in the small space. The whole time he couldn’t keep his heart rate down.

__No no no no no no no- fuck- why? She’s my captor…_ _

Yang in the meantime was laying on the bed, completely disgruntled about the whole situation.

__Why didn_ _ __’t he leave? Did he just forget? How could I have forgotten? His my hot prisoner- wait hot? God help me-_ _

When he got back out, he was only in his boxers.

Yang tried not to stare too intensely “Why are you like that?” She tried to hide any bit of excitement in her voice.

“This-” He gestured to his body “Is how I go to sleep.” He scoffed a bit “Should I cover up for your virgin eyes?”

“Ugh.” Yang rolled her eyes. She took out the cuffs and Mercury took her spot on the bed while she was up, placing his hands out in front of him. She wouldn’t look at him while she cuffed him and Mercury knew why and he loved it. But now he wasn’t sure why he loved it, before he liked it cause he could use it against her, but now that thought never came back up.

Yang slipped away into the bathroom, before joking sticking her head out “And don’t go anywhere!” She laughed

Mercury laughed as well. Glad to see that they could joke about it. Why would they joke about it? He had no idea, but he wanted this tension gone, the tension reminding them both that they are only here together as enemies.

 

She opened the door to Mercury laying on the bed with wet hair behind his cuffed hands, only in his boxers.

Yang gasped. Then she saw the drool come from his mouth. It was just a tiny bit. But she still thought it was cute as hell.

“Mercury?” he heard her in his sleep, but just moved a little to the side. She grabbed his shoulder and shook.

“Mercury!” He moaned deeply and she felt chills. He opened one eye and looked at her.

“G-get out of the bed, Mercury.”

Half asleep he looked around. Couldn’t help but take notice of Yang’s white tan-top and bright yellow short-shorts.

“Oh yeah- sorry, it was only going to be for like, a second, but I guess I drifted off.” He brought his hands back over his head quickly to hid his blush and got up almost hitting Yang who was kneeling in front of him. Then he moved off the bed.

“Wait-” Yang grabbed the pillow and a extra blanket. “Use it, it’ll help you sleep better.”

He only nodded and took it before laying on the ground. She turned off the lights and crawled into bed.     

     

He didn’t know what time it was, maybe morning, maybe only 30 minutes after, but here he was in a cold sweat from a nightmare. He panted and got up. It felt like a rock was sitting on his shoulders and chest, keeping him from breathing all the way in. He remembered that he saw that damn face and it made him cringe. He got up and stumbled to the bathroom, turned on the light and was blinded by his own reflection before he dipped his face into the sink and turned it on. The cold water went over his head and came around to his face and neck. He let the water run for a while before turning it back off and reaching for a towel. Once he got the water out of his eyes he looked at the mirror again.

He hardly recognized his own reflection. It had been awhile before he looked at his own face. Pale, almost blue-ish, and bruised- that could be where the blue was coming from? He saw that his body was getting skinnier, his muscles were not as toned as they used to be. Emerald was right, he was getting weak. Still, he admitted to himself none the less:

“I’d still fuck me.”

He turned around and left the bathroom and turned off the lights to complete black. His eyes were not adjusted at all, but he didn’t care, he just kept walking forward until something stopped both of his knees and he went falling forward.

His face landed somewhere soft and comforting. The smell brought him peace. He was on top of Yang- motorboating her actually.

“MMHP!” He suddenly tried anything to get off and run, but his hands were stuck cuffed under him and over Yang.

“Mercury.”

Mercury squirmed to get up, but just ended up shaking himself into her chest more. His nose breathing hard on Yang’s skin. She leaned forward and grabbed between his shoulder and neck with her left arm, slowly bring him up as she propped herself up.

“It’s not what it looks like- this is an accident I swear-”

“Mercury, I know. I woke up when I heard you moaning before you went up to the bathroom.”

“Oh.” he started shifting his legs forward so he could get completely off her chest.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you-” but Yang shook her head.

“It’s okay Mercury,” her hand was near his neck, and she started holding it and used her thumb to stroke his cheek.

“It sounded like you had a terrible dream, want to talk about it?”  

He allowed himself to stay in her comfort, to keep leaning onto her hand. Her other fingers where playing with the hair right under his ear. Much better than her tickling he thought. And it made him smile.

“It was just- a weird dream.” he started “You know how those goes- nothing makes since.”

Yang just smiled at him. “Tell me, I’m curious.”

Mercury couldn’t even think of a reason why he shouldn’t tell her, not before he blurted out:

“I was with Emerald- I think? But then she started melting- I don’t know what happened- but next thing I know Cinder is-” He took a shaky breath. “I feel like she was operating on me or something- I thought I saw like this thing, I don’t know, a flower bed behind her? Like it was on the ceiling. And then that flowers starting looking like Grimm and Salem appeared but her face melted off right away into my-”

He choked. He didn’t want to remember. It made him so angry.

“Into your what?”

“My fath- my fears…” He signed. Not wanting to remember that face again. “Salem kind of embodies all fear- at least that’s what I get from her.” He looked at Yang and then let out a frustrated sigh. “God damnit- Emerald- I just wish I could have taken her but you know what? I was afraid she would tell on me, tell Salem. I was too afraid to even say goodbye and I’ll never see my best friend, fuck- my family ever again! And I couldn’t just give us one last time together before I just disappeared forever from her life like a coward.”

“Hopefully not forever,” Yang’s hand was now running though his soft damp hair. “If we ever do find Salem, we’ll save Emerald, even if we have to drag her out.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s your family-”

“No.” Mercury glared at her, but not daring to move out of her grasp. “Why do you still think we can just walk in like that-” Mercury shook his head, trying his hardest to keep the tears that were swelling in his eyes to go away. “I will never be free of Salem, like I actually feel her presents in my dreams- I feel like she knows where I am at every moment, though every shadow or from within the flames.” Yang only responded by leaning in closer, mercury blinked and felt a tear run down his cheek, and it pissed him off. It pissed him off even more that he couldn’t hide it or even wipe it away with his hands. “Like, she embodies all the bad shit in this world, and as long as there is bad shit anywhere, she will be there.” He yelled in an unsteady whisper. Yang nodded, she knew bad shit was everywhere, it embodied the world as much as the good stuff. She carefully ran her fingers across his cheek to wipe the tears away, much to Mercury’s discomfort, hating he couldn’t just do it himself.Yang didn’t move her hand and rested it against his face.

“So you just plan to run for the rest of your life?” She whispered.

“I hope to enjoy what’s left of it at least, yeah.”

“Mercury, why are you so set on letting it be this way?” She moved her hand grabbing the back of his head and neck. ”I think you would be useful in the fight, on our side. You even said we made a pretty good team.”

“Hey, from where this is going, I am probably going to end up on your team, but just, you know, cuffed all the time pleading for death’s mercy. The usual.” He grunted. He couldn’t help but feel more water move out of his eyes.

__Fuck. How did I end up like this?_ _

He couldn’t look at Yang, more tears were coming and he was at the edge of a full on break-down. He hadn’t cried for a long time, and he hated that his emotions had chosen this moment to let it out. He could feel a burn in his throat, he tried so hard to keep it in but it was getting painful.

Suddenly, Yang sat up, bringing Mercury with her. He quickly shuffled up on her lap and pushed the palms of his hands into his eyes. He couldn’t keep it in, he missed Emerald, he hated who he was, what he done, he hated Salem, he didn’t want to be in this situation, he just wanted to run and run and die.

And that was it, Mercury was sobbing. He felt the weight under him move and heard Yang shifting for something, but he couldn’t care less. He just quietly sobbed, grabbing his mouth when he wept to keep the noise at bay, leaning his face down so Yang couldn’t see the wreck that he was.

Then he felt a warm feeling from his wrist flow through his body. He knew that feeling of his aura. He couldn’t help but snap his head up, face wet with tears and a little bit of snot. Yang stared into his eyes, letting out a soft chuckle because really she couldn’t help but think how cute he looked, even in this situation. And she mentally slapped herself for thinking that. They stared at each other for awhile, neither knowing what this meant. But then Yang let out her arms towards him. She could at least admit that the only thing she wanted in this moment was to make Mercury feel better, in anyway she could.

“Come here.”

And Mercury couldn’t even hesitate. He wrapped his arms around her stomach and buried his face into her shoulder. Smelling her hair right away and it made him feel so safe. He balled. Yang returned the hug and simply stroked his back. Rubbing her hand in circles up and down his spine as she carefully leaned back into the bed with Mercury on top of her again. He didn’t know how long he cried for, but when he was done he felt such peace, so relaxed. His body went completely slacked but Yang didn’t stop rubbing his back. He fell asleep in her arms.     

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry its a short one... really idk when the next update will be, but I want to see this story to the end! thank you for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Haha???  
> what did you think? let me know~  
> this is my first fic so I need to know if im doing this wrong!!!


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